


Resident Evil: Power of Sin

by ResiGamerGirl



Series: Power of Sin trilogy [1]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complete, Crossover, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 57,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ResiGamerGirl/pseuds/ResiGamerGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Book 1 of a trilogy. Seems as simple as Wesker vs. Chris. Throw in characters from Heroes, other RE characters, and Wesker's daughter, and you think you've finally got it. Until a third player is thrown in and stirs it all up. Contains OC, AU. Not a fan of the TV show Heroes? Not a problem. They're heavily featured as supporting characters. Big call back to Resident Evil (one).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trilogy Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Stories are also posted on fanfiction.net under another name I use, bluebear77100.

Author's Note: I'm not going to lie. I've come back to this series after a long time away from it. I decided to reread and resubmit these stories with some edits (my writing when I was 18 (the first book) is far more sad than it is at present). I feel like with the passage of time I may have missed drawing in some readers who may actually enjoy the stories. Now that I aim to finish my third and final book of this trilogy, I decided to try and entice people! 

Below are some teasers so you can get a general idea of what the stories are like, and especially of note is the first one (which is technically a crossover with Heroes-though they play supporting cast primarily). Now the first book is definitely one you could probably skip if you absolutely aren't into it. I don't wish to bash my own work but it's not all good (I've realized). It was my first ever fanfic. I think actually. It IS much shorter than the sequels that come after, however, so reading it wouldn't take terribly long and then you can get to the good stuff (my sequels which I very much approve of if I do say so myself-which I just did). 

Point is, here's hoping I draw in some readers (maybe some old ones even), by taking a renewed interest into my own work. As always, thank you for reading and feel free to leave a review or send a message. 

 

BOOK 1: Teaser

Chris Redfield is a survivor of the 1998 mansion incident where his hatred for the evil Umbrella Corporation was born when he discovered the terrible biological experiments they illegally performed in an effort to create bio-weapons. The year is now 2009 and Umbrella is the past. Five years have gone by since the large Corporation was destroyed and Chris is currently a member of the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) working to stop other terrorists that threaten to emerge after Umbrella's viruses were released onto the black market.

Sent on a mission in Africa with a new partner, Sheva Alomar, investigating a terrorist threat, he stumbles upon a group of people who don't have the slightest idea as to how they came to be there. Chris also meets a mysterious green-eyed girl who definitely knows more than she is saying. Before long Chris learns an old nemesis isn't as dead as he had hoped and that a much greater evil is behind the events occurring around them. And even though Umbrella is gone, many of their horrific creations live on...

 

SPOILERS for the first book.

 

BOOK 2: Teaser_Prologue through chapter 24

It is now three months since the events which took place in Africa. Chris Redfield is once again a survivor of the nightmare he experienced there and is alive to fight another day. And fight is what he will do. Along with the help of Albert Wesker, Eva, and perhaps others; he will wage a final war to bring down the evil Umbrella Corporation which has managed to endure thus far in their continued plans to create biological weapons. 

This time may prove even more difficult than before. To create a new future Chris must let go of the past. Easier said than done and he finds himself haunted by his memories and the biological change his body has undergone. Eva must also deal with a startling realization about herself that she uncovered in Africa and a knowledge of perhaps foolish love. In order for Chris Redfield to win this war, he will need to overcome his personal demons and remember why he continues to fight a losing battle. The unlikeliest individuals may become his allies but ultimately, he must decide which of them he can really trust. 

The odds are piled high against Chris and his friends. As the casualties of the war against Umbrella begin to add up, as the monsters both human and not continue to grow and become more powerful adversaries; time grows short before Umbrella Corporation unleashes their most powerful biological weapon yet...

 

BOOK 2: PART 2: Teaser_Chapter 25 through 40, and epilogue

 

SPOILERS for the first part of book 2.

 

The time has come, Umbrella Corporation's ultimate weapon is about to be unleashed. Melody has foreseen the deaths of Chris Redfield and Eva Wesker, and the others must rush to find them before their fates are sealed. Darius Greene is an ever-present threat now that he has taken over the company and his actions could prove fatal for the entire world. 

Albert and Eva Wesker, Jack Krauser, Ada Wong, Leon Kennedy, Melody, Claire Redfield, and of course Chris Redfield have been fighting a long war against Umbrella Corporation. Will they succeed in bringing down the Corporation once and for all? Or will each of them become another tally in the ever-growing count of those fallen victim to Umbrella? 

 

SPOILERS for book 2.

 

Book 3: In-progress...

COMING SOON

Title_Project: Legend

Six years after the second book's epilogue, viruses have leaked to the black market and the world faces total destruction.

Told through perspectives of Chris Redfield and Eva Wesker (OC). This story will contain a lot of characters from the games (old and newer). If an OC throws you off, know that Chris is the primary in all three stories. It's his story really.


	2. Meeting Chris Redfield

Chapter 1

\--Meeting Chris Redfield--

 

The heroes were having a bad day. Nathan and Peter Petrelli, Matt Parkman, Noah and Claire Bennet, Mohinder Suresh, Sylar, Danko, and three of Danko's agents suddenly found themselves standing in the foyer of what appeared to be some sort of mansion. Upon noticing each other, friends and enemies alike, accusations began to emerge. Each side blaming the other until finally they each began to realize none of them had the power to do such a thing or a reason on top of that. It was Noah Bennet who decided to take charge.

Bennet took the initiative and said, “Okay everyone remain calm. We just have to figure out where we are and the way out. It's simple so nobody needs to panic.” 

He looked around him. There was a large staircase leading up to a second floor and a door to his left and right. Turning and putting his back to the stairs, he noticed a third set of double doors straight ahead. He pointed it out to the others. “There. That certainly looks like a front door.”

As if on cue, the door burst open and a team of men ran in. The last one in slammed the door behind him and then rested his back against the door, completely out of breath. By their clothing, they were clearly field agents of some kind and they were all heavily armed and equipped. A man possibly in his early to mid-30's was the first to notice the dozen or so people standing around the foyer. He signaled his men and the other four members quickly raised their weapons at the group. The man who had taken notice of them did the same with his handgun, eyeing them suspiciously. 

“Identify yourselves!” he commanded. “What are you doing here?!”

Having had enough of this confusion, Nathan spoke to the armed soldiers. 

“We don't know how we got here. We just are. All of us are just citizens, regular people who ended up in this house. I was in California before and my brother was in New York. We don't know how all of us got to this place but we mean you no harm.”

The man frowned. “California? New York? This is Colorado.”

“What?” Nathan breathed with disbelief.

The confusion and surprise was mirrored on the others' faces as well and the soldier took their reactions in. 

“The Arklay Mountains to be precise. Raccoon City used to be just a few miles from here,” the man continued.

“Used to be?” Mohinder asked.

The soldier looked saddened for a moment before he quickly covered it with his tough face. 

“Yeah, the government blew it up to cover what happened there.”

Nathan didn't look like he wanted to believe such a thing. “What? What happened there to cause them to blow up an entire city? That's impossible.”

The man smiled sadly. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

He searched each of them over one more time before lowering his weapon. He motioned for his teammates to do the same. They seemed reluctant to do so but followed their commander's orders. Turning back to look at the odd assortment of people gathered in the foyer, he introduced himself.

“My name is Chris Redfield and I'm with the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance. These are my teammates David, Josh, Martin, and Ethan.”

He pointed to each member in turn as he supplied their names. Chris turned his gaze on Danko who was eyeing him hostilely. 

“What agency do you work for?” Chris asked him.

Danko stared at him. “What makes you think-”

“Your buddies in the back with the assault rifles for starters.” Chris quipped.

“That's classified.” Danko finally answered. “But I also hunt terrorists.”

Chris took interest in this and asked him, “So then you know about the Uroboros virus?”

The blankness in his expression clearly gave Chris his answer. 

“I would be very interested to know what you're all doing here but right now there isn't time. You should stay here as a group.” Chris turned his gaze back to Danko. “You and your men should keep alert until my team and I return.”

Bennet didn't seem keen on this plan. Apparently he didn't like staying in one place for very long wherever he was and he disregarded Chris's orders. 

“No thank you. I don't know about the rest of you but I'm taking my daughter and getting back home. The door is right there and we'll find our own way back,” he said to Chris.

Bennet started for the door, Claire trailing slowly behind him. She seemed reluctant to leave the others behind. One of the armed men was quick to step in front of the door, blocking their exit.

“Move out of the way.” Bennet demanded sternly.

“You don't want to go out there.” Chris informed him.

Bennet narrowed his eyes at the younger man. “And why not?”

“Skinless dogs,” the one named Ethan answered for Chris. 

As if to prove his point, he rolled up a sleeve to show them all a rather nasty looking dog bite on his forearm.

“Quick as hell and vicious bastards.” Ethan added, pulling his sleeve back down.

Claire seemed curious. “Why would they attack you?”

Ethan answered her. “They used to be the guard dogs for this mansion. Then the T-Virus leaked and infected them. Damn dogs escaped from their cages and had their first taste of human flesh. Been eating it ever since cause it's the only food they got. These days they're especially hungry seeing as the only meat around here are the rotting zombie fucks and they don't taste very-”

“That's enough!” Chris yelled at him. 

He could see that Claire was getting frightened by Ethan's talk.

“Zombies?” she asked slowly. “You're joking right? Those don't exist...” she trailed off uncertainly.

Chris looked sympathetically at her. “What's your name?”

She lifted her gaze to look up at him. “Claire.”

This brought a smile to the agent's lips. “I have a sister named Claire. She's much older than you though but she was only 19 when she escaped Raccoon city. Claire was one of the few who did make it.”

It was easy to see by the way Chris's face fell that he did not like talking about Raccoon City much but Claire just had to ask him.

“What happened there?”

Chris didn't seem to like the idea of answering her but all of the others in the room were now watching him intently, eager to know themselves. Even his teammates had never heard him tell the story and looked at him in anticipation of finally getting to hear it. 

The man sighed and nodded. “Okay, I suppose you have a right to know since you're all in this mess somehow,” he reasoned. “I should start from the beginning. Ten years ago I was a member of the STARS unit which stands for Special Tactics And Rescue Service. Strange murders had been occurring in the area just outside Raccoon City and the victims were apparently eaten.”

He paused when several of his audience winced at this, Claire especially. He continued anyways.

“STARS was sent in to investigate the forest where most of the murders had taken place next to Raccoon City. Bravo team was sent in first but we lost contact with them so by helicopter Alpha team went in to investigate. I was a member of Alpha team along with Barry, Jill, Brad, Joseph, and Wesker. We found Bravo's helicopter had crashed in the middle of the forest and it was after that the nightmare began. The dogs got Joseph..they were just ripping him apart and eating him alive..I'll never forget the screams..Then our helicopter pilot Brad panicked and abandoned us, flying away before we could reach the chopper.”

It was obvious to his listeners that as he told his story Chris was also reliving it and they knew he wasn't lying. The haunted look in his eyes told them all it was the truth. 

He continued. “So we ran from the dogs, ran for our lives. We found this very mansion.” 

Chris suddenly chuckled but it was one full of irony. “We thought this mansion would be shelter for us. To protect us from those skinless abominations.”

The man laughed again. “We were wrong. The mansion was a nightmare full of its own abominations. We were foolish and split up, thinking we could cover more ground as we searched for our missing comrades. We did find them..or at least the bodies.”

Chris squinted, trying to think back for the details. “Kenneth was the first Bravo member discovered inside the mansion. Walked in a room to find a zombie feasting on his body. Richard was nearly dead of poisoning from being attacked by a giant infected snake, I made it to him in time but he was later eaten by an enormous shark.”

His listeners were staring at him in stunned disbelief. Sharks? Giant snakes? In a mansion? As if zombies and skinless dogs weren't hard enough to believe in the first place.

“Forrest was pecked to death by infected crows and awoke as a zombie. I had to put him down. God..poor Forrest...” Chris trailed off.

Claire spoke softly to him. “You don't have to explain how your friends died if it's too painful.”

Chris shook his head. “No, they deserve to be remembered.” He went on with his tale. “As I searched the mansion on my end, I learned that this mansion was built by a man named George Trevor. But the mansion was actually a cover for something much bigger. A pharmaceutical company named Umbrella which was founded by a man named Oswell Spencer, had actually built underground laboratories here. The pharmaceutical company turned out to be nothing but a title to hide what Umbrella was really doing.”

Mohinder seemed extremely interested now. “What? What were they doing here?”

Chris told him. “Experiments. They were trying to engineer bio-weapons. They were using something called the T-Virus and there was an accident. The T-Virus leaked and infected the workers who soon became zombies and they roamed all throughout the mansion, decaying, and with their sad soulless moans..but they weren't the worst of it. Many of their animal test subjects escaped from the cages, the ones I remember most were the hunters. I won't even tell you about how deadly they were..the name says it all. The one monster that I will never forget..was Lisa Trevor..she was human once. When the mansion was first built sometime in the 1960s, the architect, Trevor, accidentally discovered the underground laboratories and Spencer grew paranoid the man would expose their experiments. Spencer invited Trevor's wife and daughter to the mansion, Lisa was only 14 then...Spencer locked Trevor in a secluded room where he left the man to die. Then he used Trevor's wife and daughter as test subjects in their experiments. I had to kill that little girl. She'd become a hideous monster, living underground and killing...” He broke off where he was headed. “I'm sorry. I'm getting off subject.”

No one said anything. They were all still reeling from the fact that this company had done so many horrible things. Infected people against their will, illegally testing things on animals and humans and then to have the virus leak like that... No one wanted to think about it. Even Sylar appeared a little disturbed about what Chris was telling them had happened ten years before.

Chris went on. “So I learned about Umbrella's experiments but I also learned something else. There was a traitor among the STARS. My captain, captain of the Alpha team, Albert Wesker, was working for Umbrella all along. He led our teams into the mansion on purpose. We were to be test subjects so Umbrella could see how their bio-weapons held up against trained soldiers.”

The agent clenched his fists tightly as his face became filled with anger at the thought of the traitor. 

“Wesker shot and killed Enrico, the captain of Bravo team because Enrico had learned of Wesker's betrayal. In the end the remaining survivors of my team headed for the helipad after finally making contact with our pilot Brad, who had returned to the area searching for us. Wesker woke up the sleeping human experiment labeled the Tyrant, to kill us but ended up being killed instead. Our team managed to kill the Tyrant and we escaped on the helicopter before the mansion blew up and don't ask me to explain how the mansion is here if it blew up because I have no idea, not in the slightest. Jill, Barry, and myself were the only ones from Alpha team to make it out and Rebecca was the sole survivor of Bravo team. Our pilot Brad survived as well obviously but..he didn't make it out of Raccoon City.”

It seemed to pain Chris a great deal to be remembering all their deaths but he was definitely determined to give them all the facts. 

“We tried to tell them, we tried to tell everyone what we'd seen in that mansion but no one believed us.”

Chris shook his head angrily. “They called us crazy and suspended us from STARS. Our teammates had died in vain!” 

The experienced soldier quickly regained his calm and finished his story. 

“A few months later, Raccoon City was infected. The entire city's population became infected by the T-Virus. There were people who hadn't been infected or changed yet but they were killed by the ones who had turned into those zombie creatures. My teammates Jill and Brad were still in the city and they tried to escape while a creature named Nemesis tried to kill them. Nemesis was a monster created by Umbrella specifically designed to kill STARS. It got Brad but Jill managed to escape alive before the government blew the whole place all to hell. Or at least that's the story. Some believe it was Umbrella who nuked the city to cover up the fact that they had another facility underneath Raccoon city where they were experimenting with something called the G-Virus. So anyways, after the mansion incident and what happened in Raccoon City, myself and the other surviving members sought to expose Umbrella for what they had done. We finally succeeded but that victory was short lived. Once Umbrella saw they were going to be ruined, they sold their viruses on the black market to the highest bidder.”

Chris shook his head. “A lot of evil bastards out there I guess.”

Claire glanced at Sylar when Chris said this and Sylar took the insinuation to heart (not).

“Why Claire, I'm offended.” Sylar said to her, his words coated with sarcasm.

“You're a murderer,” she told him bluntly. 

“I don't make them suffer..long.” Sylar said as he smiled creepily.

Chris eyed him as if trying to read him before turning back to his story.

“I won't get into details with the rest of what's happened up until now but my captain from STARS, Wesker, he didn't actually die in that mansion incident. Well, he did die. The Tyrant killed him, I saw it myself. But apparently Wesker managed to inject himself with an experimental serum known as the progenitor virus before he died. The virus allowed him to resurrect and it also gave him superhuman abilities. This is the man I'm looking for. He's planning to infect the entire population of the world with a virus called Uroboros. Wesker's completely insane and extremely dangerous which is why you all need to stay here and-”

He didn't get to finish his sentence because suddenly the radio on his belt crackled to life.

“Chris?” a female's voice said from the radio.

“That's the other team on this mission, Delta team.” Chris said to answer their curious gazes before responding on his two way radio.

“Sheva, this is Chris. What's the situation?”

“We've found how Wesker plans to disperse the virus. There's an airfield on this map I found and I'm bettin' he's going to use an aircraft. You can get to it through some sort of underground passageway in what looks like a large residential building.”

The female voice on the radio had some sort of accent, Bennet guessed some African variation in origin most likely.

“Yeah it's a mansion. I'm there now.”

“Roger that partner. We'll catch up with you-Randall look out!” 

The radio went silent and looking alarmed, Chris tried to get a hold of her with no luck. After a few moments the radio crackled and the female voice came back on. When she spoke she sounded frightened and her breathing was fast and rough.

“Chris! What's going on around here? The people living in a small town nearby were trying to kill us. For no reason! There's something wrong with them. I don't understand.”

“I know. We ran into some of them too. They're acting like those Ganado detailed in the Kennedy report.”

“Oh God..you don't think that's happened here too, do you?”

“I don't know but we've got to find Wesker and stop him. Contact me when you make it to the mansion. I'm going to try and find the passageway to the airport.”

“Roger that..and Chris?”

“Yeah Sheva?”

“I'm sorry about what happened to your last partner.”

Chris's eyes flashed with pain and deep sorrow. He hesitated before responding.

“What happened to Jill wasn't your fault. We're partners now Sheva and I don't regret it, okay? Now focus on the mission or you'll get yourself killed.”

“Right. We're partners to the end.”

The radio went silent and Chris put it away. He turned back to everyone but didn't get anything out before a grinding noise sounded from behind the large staircase. A tall man with slicked back blonde hair and dressed entirely in black (black boots, black pants, black shirt, black gloves, a long black coat, and black sunglasses) came walking ever so arrogantly like, from a room none of them had noticed before. He didn't seem to take any notice of them at first, instead walking right past where Sylar, Danko, and his men were and heading for the stairs. He made it to the fourth or fifth step before Chris pulled himself out of his shock and shouted the man's name in anger.

“Wesker!”


	3. Right to Play God

Chapter 2

\--Right to Play God--

 

Chris raised his gun and aimed it at Wesker. The man slowed to a stop on the staircase and without turning he spoke. His voice had a British accent to it and he spoke slowly, extending each word as if anything he said was too important to be spoken any differently.

“Don't you ever tire of failing in your mission, Chris?”

“I can't let you release the virus, Wesker,” was all the man said in reply.

Slowly the man turned his head to the right, to fix his eyes on Chris. He smiled an eerie smile before turning around fully to face Chris. 

“Do you honestly think you can defeat me?” Wesker asked very rhetorically.

“I don't know. But I won't stop trying until I'm dead,” he retorted, dead serious.

Wesker chuckled and it was a very disturbing sound. “Then I guess I'll just have to kill you quickly.”

Claire didn't think it was possible but she could actually hear the evil in his voice. Slowly, Wesker removed his dark sunglasses and stared hard at Chris. For the first time, the others could see that he had red-yellow eyes which only further enhanced his dangerous appearance.

“Catch.” 

“Huh?” Chris stared at Wesker, confused.

Wesker threw the sunglasses at him, and startled, Chris took a step back and caught them. He frowned when he saw what he had caught only to hear a shout of warning and Wesker was suddenly in front of him. The enemy grabbed the arm holding the gun and pulled it to the side before delivering a punch to Chris's stomach and then an elbow upside his chin. When the other members of Chris's team opened fire, Wesker literally kicked off of Chris's chest, sending the man painfully to the floor, while back-flipping in the air and away. The others watched as they saw that while Wesker had attacked Chris he had also retrieved his sunglasses, and he put them on again.

Chris and his team already knew how fast and strong Wesker was but the others were shocked. Wesker moved so quickly that it seemed as though he were appearing and reappearing in different parts of the room. He also was dodging the soldiers' bullets with ease as he flipped, jumped, and spun throughout the room. Chris was back on his feet in time to see Wesker grab up Josh by the neck with one gloved hand and hold him in the air. 

“No!” the BSAA agent yelled when he saw Wesker flexing his free hand. 

He knew what Wesker was going to do and he was too late to help his comrade. Wesker literally punched his fist through Josh's chest and out the other side. Without a hint of remorse, Wesker pulled his hand back out and dropped Josh's corpse to the floor. Chris didn't have time to mourn his friend, he opened fire on Wesker, as did the other soldiers. Though Danko and his three men were armed, they made no move to help. They were like the other heroes, too shocked by the man's abilities to do anything. It wasn't until Wesker involved them did they even begin to react.

Chris's gun was knocked from his hand but he was saved from being attacked when Wesker jumped away in order to avoid the other soldiers' bullets. Dry clicks echoed throughout the room. All three had run out of ammunition at nearly the same time. Forgetting his gun for the moment, Chris ran at Wesker when the black-clad man landed gracefully a few feet away and shoved at him with all his strength. Wesker slid back maybe a foot before he stopped moving. He was far too strong for Chris and the man knew it. He smiled at Chris's attempt before latching on to Chris and ramming his knee into the younger man's stomach twice before spinning and sending the younger man across the room where he slammed into the left railing of the staircase. 

Chris hit the railing and fell to his hands and knees on the floor with a grunt of pain. He spotted his gun on the floor right near his right hand though and quickly grabbed it before leaping to his feet. With Chris armed, and the other soldiers now finished reloading their weapons, Wesker disappeared in a blur and reappeared behind Claire. He grabbed her and pulled her away from the others, towards the wall on the right side of the room. He held her with one arm locked around her neck and the other wrenching one of her arms behind her back. The grip was painful and she struggled.

“Claire!” her father, Noah, called out with alarm.

“Let go of me!” Claire yelled in fury.

Wesker simply ignored her, his eyes locked on Chris, who approached with his weapon aimed towards them but dared not come closer when he was a couple yards away from the two.

“Why are you doing this? What could possibly make you want to destroy the world?” Chris asked him.

He just couldn't understand why Wesker would want to do such a thing. His remaining three soldiers fanned out behind Chris, their assault rifles aimed at Wesker as well. The man got his answer. 

“Every day mankind leads itself closer to its own destruction. I'm not destroying the world, I'm merely saving it.”

“You're insane!” Chris shouted.

His declaration was ignored. “I will spread the virus into the atmosphere and once the world is infected, only those deemed worthy will survive and grow stronger. A race of superhumans will emerge and I will be the creator!”

“You're delusional, Wesker! Living with your God-complex. You're nothing but a monster.”

The tyrant smiled. “The right to play God...that right is now mine.”

“Let her go, Wesker! Let's finish this. I'm not going to let you release the virus. I'll put an end to this now.”

His enemy shoved Claire at him before suddenly running over to the stairs. Chris caught Claire before she could fall down and her father rushed over to take over for the agent, who turned back to Wesker on the stairs. 

“Wesker!” he shouted angrily.

He got a chillingly wicked laugh in return. “Six billion cries of agony will birth a new balance. Unfortunately, you will not live to see the dawn.”

A hooded and cloaked figure came walking in through the front door right then. The door closed with a resounding thud behind the person as he or she walked towards them. The hooded figure kept their head down and stood next to Wesker without another sound. When Chris didn't lower his gun or stop glaring at Wesker, the blonde man smirked. He had that 'I know something you don't' look in his eyes and Chris didn't like it one bit.

Still smirking, the tyrant spoke. “Why Chris... I'd expect you to be happier to see us again after all this time.”

“Us?” Chris asked, puzzled.

The smile on Wesker's face widened. “Always so slow to catch on.”

Wesker reached around and pulled the hood back and off the cloaked figure's face. A woman around Chris's age could now be seen. She had blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and pale blue eyes. She looked almost as if the very color had been wiped from her hair and eyes at some point. Her gaze was as expressionless as Wesker's often was. Chris's puzzlement quickly changed to shock and disbelief.

Chris stared. “Jill...” 

His voice almost sounded as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing but then grew confident.

“Jill! It's me, Chris!” Chris said, lowering his gun completely.

She didn't react at all when Chris called out to her.

Claire wondered why that name sounded so familiar and then remembered. She'd heard it several times in Chris's story. Jill had been a member of Chris's team that went into the mansion. The ex-partner of his who had died some time in the past. Except that she wasn't dead. Jill was standing right in this room but on the wrong side. Instead of standing by Chris, she was with Wesker.

David looked stunned. “What? Are you sure that's her? She's been presumed dead for two years.” 

Wesker smiled again and mockingly gestured towards Jill.

“The one and only,” he told them, clearly enjoying the shock and confusion apparent on Chris's face.

Suddenly Jill whipped off her cloak and threw it at Chris. Surprised, Chris lifted his arms to block the cloak from smacking into his face only to find Jill there attacking him. Chris flew backwards when Jill kicked him in the chest, and jumped on top of him while he was still in midair forcing him down hard. Chris's team immediately went on the offensive. Two moved to guard the others in the room and the other, Ethan, opened fire on Jill. 

Jill responded to the gunfire by flipping over to Ethan and knocking the gun from his hand with a kick. She moved almost as quickly as Wesker could. The two met in hand to hand combat, and amazingly, Jill front flipped forward and threw Ethan over herself with just her legs. He landed hard on his back, the breath knocked out of him. Seeing that Chris was back on his feet and raising his weapon at her, she ran towards him and grabbed his arm holding the gun. Now that he was unable to get a shot off at her, she took her other hand and began to choke him. Chris struggled against her grasp but she was strong like Wesker and he grunted in pain as his oxygen was cut off. 

Back on his feet, Ethan hurried to Chris's aid and put his gun to the back of Jill's head. Wesker didn't seem to approve of that. He knocked Ethan off his feet with an elbow to the head and at the same time, Jill punched Chris and then roundhouse kicked him. The two soldiers fell to the floor next to each other and Wesker and Jill stood together a few yards away watching them. The two men struggled to their feet near the front doors and raised their weapons at their pair of enemies standing by the foot of the stairs.

“I expected more of a challenge after all this time, Chris.” Wesker told him with disapproval.

A phone rang, Wesker's cell phone. He answered it, turning slightly away from the others. “Yes.”

Wesker listened into his phone, walking up a few stairs as he listened. Not wanting him to get away, Chris took a few steps closer, Ethan following his lead, and yelled for Wesker to stop. Wesker did stop. He hung up his phone and turned his head towards Chris with a smile that told Chris something was going to happen. Sure enough, Jill was suddenly upon them. She elbowed Ethan in the chest and face before sending him flying to the right wall with a strong thrust kick. Then she was attacking Chris. Jill grabbed his arm, keeping the gun out of her way and hit him in the chest. Chris gave a yell of pain as she threw him to the ground and straddled him, yanking his arm back which sent his gun flying and continuing to hold it there. Chris struggled in vain to get free, his arm being pulled towards the breaking point. 

Desperately he tried to reach out to Jill. “Jill, come on! It's me, Chris! Snap out of it!”

Wesker walked over to where Jill held Chris to the floor and smiled down at him.

“Nice move, Chris,” he told the other man, his tone mocking. “But now that your partner has arrived. I'll leave you two to catch up.”

Wesker headed back towards the staircase.

Jill yanked harder and Chris cried out in pain and frustration. “Come on, Jill! Get yourself together! Wake up! Jill Valentine!”

Familiar blue eyes stared down at him from where she struggled to keep him held in place and something changed in the way she was looking at him. Recognition began to cross over her face.

“Ch...Chris....” Jill gasped out.

She instantly released him and stumbled back, grunting in pain. Wesker paused by the foot of the stairs.

Wesker seemed impressed. “Remarkable! Still resisting at such an advanced stage.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a handheld device of some kind and started pressing a few buttons. “Commendable, yet futile.”

Jill stopped fighting it when Wesker finished pressing the buttons and she fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

His nemesis gave Chris a stern look. “No more time for games, Chris. I've got work to do. Have fun watching Jill suffer.”

“Wait! What did you do to her?!” Chris yelled after Wesker but he had moved up the stairs and was gone. 

Chris whipped around when Jill began screaming out in agony. She clutched her chest tightly and fell to her knees, head tilted back as she ripped the top part of her black sneak suit she wore. Now visible on her chest was some sort of machine or device. It was red and glowing dimly. Jill dropped onto her hands and knees and when she lifted her head, she wore the look of anger she had had when she was fighting them before. Her eyes were definitely hostile again. 

Ethan glanced sideways at Chris. “What's that on her chest?”

Chris eyed the strange looking device. “We have to get it off her!”

Jill attacked and the two soldiers fought her. Chris made his way behind her while she was fighting Ethan and grabbed her, holding her in place.

“Okay! Shoot it!” he yelled to Ethan.

Jill struggled hard and it was difficult to try and keep her in place. Ethan aimed, his hands trembling slightly. He was nervous about accidentally hitting her instead. Jill was starting to break free.

“Go on! Shoot!” Chris shouted hurriedly.

Chris's grip started to slip and then Ethan fired. The bullet pierced the glowing red device and Chris reached around and ripped it off. Sounds of discomfort and pain came from Jill as she staggered back. After a moment she collapsed to the floor, her eyes closed.

“Jill!” Chris ran to her and held her in his arms. “Are you alright?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him tiredly. “Chris....I'm so sorry....”

Chris smiled down at her. “It's okay.”

“I couldn't control my actions. Oh, but God..I was still aware. The things he made me do..I infected people, killed them, hurt innocents. It made me sick but I couldn't resist. Forgive me.”

Jill's breathing was rough and she seemed to be struggling for air as she spoke.

“Jill..why are you talking like this? I saved you. You're going to be okay now.”

She stared up at him from where he held her and smiled sadly. 

“You did save me. But I was dead before you ever got here. The fall would have killed me two years ago, Chris. It should have killed me but then Wesker put this thing on my chest and it kept me alive. It also kept me in his control. You freed me but I can't go on any more.”

Chris shook his head in denial. “No! Don't say that. I'll find a way to keep you alive. I won't let you die, Jill.”

Her smile deepened. “My body's broken. For coming for me..for saving me...thank you.”

Her breathing became quieter now and less frequent. 

“Jill no! You can't die. Please, I love you...” Chris said to her, his voice gripped with emotion.

The smile left her face and she lifted a hand slowly to caress Chris's cheek. 

“Chris...” she spoke his name, barely above a whisper.

Her hand fell limply to her side and her eyes froze in place. Pale blue eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling now and a sob escaped Chris. He held her tightly to him as tears of anger and grief fell down his face. 

Claire found tears welling up in her eyes at the scene before her. Matt and Mohinder looked very sad by it as well. The others for the most part kept their expressions neutral, though for some like Peter and Nathan, they were only pretending to be unaffected by such a tragedy. Clearly this was Chris's worst nightmare it seemed as he tried to bring her back to life with his pleas. 

“Please..you can't die. Don't go where I can't follow. Jill...” 

Chris buried his face in her shoulder and a loud sob escaped him at the life lost. After a few moments, Chris lowered Jill gently to the floor and stood back up. He turned away so he wouldn't have to see her body any more.


	4. Reliving a Nightmare

Chapter 3

\--Reliving a Nightmare--

 

“You have to shoot her in the head.” Chris said to no one in particular. The pain in saying such a thing was obviously hurting him badly.

“What are you talking about? She's dead already. Why would you do such a thing?” Peter demanded to know.

Chris slowly turned to face Peter. He wiped the remaining tears from his eyes and resumed his tough, authoritative demeanor. 

“If this place is anything like the mansion from ten years ago, then she's going to change into a zombie in an hour or maybe even sooner. The only way to kill the undead is with decapitation or a headshot. You have to destroy the brain.” He shook his head after actually thinking straight for a second. “Wait, Jill's immune. We don't have to do it.”

“I don't think there are any, um..so called zombies here.” Mohinder commented, clearly skeptical about the whole idea of such creatures existing. 

“You are incorrect,” a female voice spoke up.

A girl had entered the room through the double doors on the left without anyone noticing. The girl looked to be around Claire's age. She couldn't have been taller than 5'2'', had straight blonde hair past her shoulders, and startlingly bright green eyes. She wore black combat pants, a black t-shirt, black combat boots, and a belt which held multiple items. She strode up to them and stopped next to Jill's body. Without warning, the girl pulled a handgun from a holster on her belt and fired a bullet into the head.

“What the hell!” Chris shouted in shock.

“You get emotional, you die,” the girl said to him before putting away her gun.

“Who are you?!” Chris demanded, looking ready to pull his own gun despite her young age.

“My name is Eva Jane. I'm here to get you people out of this mansion.”

“And why would you do that?” Noah Bennet asked her, always suspicious.

“Why do you want to know?”

Noah seemed startled by her question and so Eva spoke again. “When people ask a question, all that really matters is why they want to know the answer.”

The man fell silent as he tried to make sense of what she had just told him.

“Chris Redfield?” she asked, turning her gaze to Chris.

“Yeah but how did you-”

“Don't ask because I won't answer. You are going to be the one to lead us out of this place and I'll assist. But you're the one who knows exactly what's going to happen, when and where.”

Chris stared at her blankly. “What? How would I be able to do that?”

Eva spoke as if the answer were obvious. “Because Chris, this is the mansion. This is the exact mansion you were trapped in ten years ago.”

There was a very long moment of silence as everyone took this in. 

“That's impossible.” Chris finally said.

The front door slammed open at that moment and three people stumbled in. They were see-through like though, fuzzy almost like they were on a video screen. All three were dressed in combat uniforms and each uniform had STARS across it. One of them was a woman in her early 20's and her hair was bunched up under her beret but everyone in the room recognized her face anyways. It was hard to forget the face of a person you just watched die. It was Jill. In fact, the image of Jill in her STARS uniform was standing right next to her actual body that laid on the floor in the foyer. The man on her left looked exactly like Chris, only younger. It was Chris ten years earlier. This Chris appeared so much more carefree and happy. He had no idea the nightmare this night was going to become. The final man in the foyer was also unmistakable. He was on Jill's right and had slicked back blonde hair and black sunglasses just like he still looked when they'd seen him earlier. It was Wesker. 

“What is this?” Chris asked shocked. “How am I seeing what happened then?”

Eva explained. “Everything in this mansion is going to play out exactly as it did that night, ten years ago. We will use it to our advantage. It should help us find our way out of here.”

Chris seemed lost. “But why...?” 

This newcomer shrugged. “It's necessary. Just consider these ghosts of the past. Or spirits is probably a better choice seeing as some of those images aren't dead. Hmm..yes. Images is a good word for this.”

The young girl seemed to be taking this in stride and none of them could understand how this was possible. Chris had the suspicion that she didn't really know why the images were appearing but didn't ask any more questions because the image of Jill was speaking now and he turned to watch.

“Wesker..where's Barry?” Jill asked, sounding worried as she searched around her.

The captain glanced towards the doors they had just come through. “He must be...”

“No..” Jill said, knowing that if Barry was still out there he was probably dead.

A gunshot rang out from a room somewhere further into the mansion, through the left double doors. 

“Chris, go check it out.” Wesker ordered.

Chris nodded and jogged over to the double doors but paused when Jill called out his name.

“Chris!”

He looked back at her. Jill seemed about to say something but instead she chose to speak different words.

“Be careful.”

Her teammate nodded. “I will.” 

Then he turned and went through the doors. Eva watched Chris expectantly. 

“So we follow the image of my past self and this is going to somehow get us to where we want to go?” Chris asked, trying to understand how that was true.

Eva nodded. “Correct. Let's go.”

“Just answer me this. How old are you?” Chris asked out of nowhere.

Eva stared at him for a long moment before answering. “Seventeen. Now can we go?”

“Yeah. Now we can go.” Chris said with a small smile.

He seemed happy that he had at least gotten something out of this secretive young girl. Chris commanded his men to take the rear and the rest followed behind Chris and Eva. Before Chris went through the doors, he paused and looked back at Jill's body one last time. Then they entered the next room which turned out to be a dining hall and suddenly Eva stopped as her cell phone rang.

“Yes.” Eva spoke into her cell.

Chris stared at the blonde haired girl. The way she had answered the phone made him study her features more closely. Why did she seem so familiar to him? Chris was certain he had never met this girl before in his life. So then why did he feel as if he recognized her from somewhere? He couldn't place it...

As Eva listened to whomever was on the other line, her face fell slightly.

“So there's someone else playing a role in this then...” Eva said into the phone. “Understood. I will be there shortly.”

“Who was that? What's wrong?” Chris asked her.

“I must go.”

“Go? This was your idea!” he exclaimed.

Eva was barely listening. She was looking upwards as if searching for something.

“I will find you,” she said before leaving quickly through the double doors. 

“Eva!” he yelled after her but received no answer. 

“Chris, there's blood,” one of his soldiers, Martin, pointed out.

Martin was the furthest one in the room and he stood over by a fireplace built into the wall opposite of the doors they had come through. Chris jogged over but his expression became calmer when he saw the puddle of blood. 

“That's not a normal expression for someone looking at a puddle of blood on the floor.” Mohinder commented, staring at Chris a little put off.

Chris didn't seem to notice how the other man was disturbed. “This blood was here that night. It's not really there now.”

As if to prove his point, he reached down and placed a finger into the pool of blood. He withdrew the finger and held it up for them to see. There was no blood on his finger so it was indeed not real.

“Creepy.” Claire muttered.

Her father glanced at her but said nothing. Silently, he was agreeing with her. Chris started to lead them out of the room but he hesitated in the doorway.

“What is it?” Matt asked him.

“I found Kenneth right after this. Come to think of it, this was probably his blood.”

He moved into the hallway and immediately went to the left. The group soon saw what Chris had been telling them. A hideously rotting creature in what looked like a worn and decayed suit was bent over a uniformed body. The disgusting slurping sounds that emanated from where the zombie was biting the dead man's neck was horrible. Claire got a look at the victim's face and gasped. His eyes and mouth were open in terror and pain. He had died in immense agony. The zombie most likely had bitten into his neck until he bled out. Protectively, Noah blocked the corpse from his daughter's view.

Impatiently, Noah asked, “Can we continue now?”

He clearly seemed anxious to get out of that room. In fact, everyone was feeling that way. Chris couldn't believe how real it all seemed. He could even swear he smelled the rotting flesh of the undead creature but that had to have been his imagination. Even Sylar stared down at the sight, unable to take his eyes from it.

“How disgusting.” Sylar commented. 

The people that knew the terrible things the man had done and still did, glanced at him with disbelieving eyes.

He took in their looks without much outward reaction. “What? I don't eat the people I kill.”

Chris raised an eyebrow at Sylar's blatant admittance that he killed people. “I'm sorry. Who do you kill?”

Before anyone else could answer, one of Danko's men spoke up nervously.

“Um..sir, I think it's noticing us.”

Danko appeared confused. “What are you talking-”

He stopped short when he saw what his soldier meant. The zombie had halted its eating and was turning its head slowly to look at them. Chris was confused. 

“Where did my past self go? The zombie's supposed to come after me and I run and report to Wesker. Well I was going to, but Wesker and Jill had disappeared..”

No one knew how to answer that. They didn't know what was supposed to happen any more than he did. The zombie was standing upright now and it turned towards the closest one which happened to be Danko's man who had spoken up earlier. 

“Huanghh..” 

The zombie groaned pitifully and then its rotting hands latched onto the soldier's shoulders and threw its head against his neck and bit down. Danko's man screamed out in agony as the zombie started chowing down on his neck.

“Holy shit that thing's real!” Chris shouted in horror and disbelief.

Extremely annoyed, Danko lifted his handgun and fired a round at point blank range, straight into the zombie's head. The undead creature's skull exploded in a spray of brain matter and gore against the opposite wall from the hall and it fell to the carpet and ceased further movement. Danko's man stumbled back against the far wall and sank into a sitting position, clutching the hole in his neck. He was clearly in tremendous pain. 

“Am I gonna turn into one of those things?!” the young soldier asked, panicking. 

“Is there a cure of some kind?” Mohinder questioned.

Chris shook his head. “Not here and there's no way he'd make it long enough for us to find and administer the cure.”

Peter hesitated before deciding he couldn't just let this man suffer such a fate. 

“I can fly. Tell me where to get it and I'll fly there and find it. I could make it back in time.”

Chris stared incredulously at him. “Fly? That's a joke, right?”

Nathan quickly defended him. “He's not lying. I'm his brother and I can fly too.”

Noah interceded. “Take them at their word. They're telling you the truth.”

Claire seemed to want to avoid the usual 'surprise we have powers' charade and she spoke to Chris, filling him in on everything. “And while we're telling the truth. I pretty much can't die because I heal, Mohinder has strength, Matt can read people's minds and control what they do or see, and Sylar has many abilities such as moving objects with his mind and healing himself like me, but he's a murderer so I'd watch your back.”

Noah stared at her with a frown. “Okay I think that's enough Claire.”

Chris and his team were looking at all of them like they were insane. Rolling his eyes, Sylar lifted a hand and the zombie's corpse levitated in the air. 

“See, ability. Can we move on now? I don't plan on spending the rest of my life with you people in this place.”

Sylar let his hand fall back to his side and the corpse collapsed back onto the carpet. Chris aimed his weapon at him but also the whole group in general.

“Who are you people? More experiments of Umbrella?” he demanded in a hostile tone.

“No! We were just born this way! Well..most of us anyways. We're not a threat right now!” Claire insisted.

“Oh God..I don't wanna turn into one of those things..” 

Danko's injured man murmured, putting the distrust among the group aside for the moment. He seemed completely out of it from the pain and shock of being bitten.

Peter prodded Chris for an answer. “Come on. Tell me where I can find the cure.”

Chris looked apologetically at him. “I believe you can fly, okay. But it's a thin line between finding a cure for a virus or using it as a biological weapon.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Noah had been studying the BSAA agent's eyes as he said those words and he answered Peter for Chris. “It means he doesn't know where the cure is.”

Peter asked Chris for confirmation. “Is that true?”

It was Ethan who answered him. “Course it's true. Do ya think they're gonna just tell anybody where it is? If you got the cure for the T-Virus then ya might as well be holding the key to makin' the virus as well.”

“I'm not gonna become one of those freaks..” Danko's injured soldier muttered.

Danko glanced at his soldier when he spoke and his eyes widened as he saw what the injured man was about to do to himself.

“No, don't!” he shouted, helplessly.

But it was no use. The bleeding soldier pointed his gun under his chin and fired, quickly ending his life. Chris looked on without much expression. If anything, his eyes just seemed to grow more tired.

“If every one of the monsters are back in this mansion...we may not even make it out of here at all.”

Noah's expression became grave. “What other kinds of creatures are in this place?”

Chris slowly lifted his eyes to meet his gaze. “Come on. We should keep moving.”

It didn't escape Bennet, that he had failed to answer his question which worried him a bit. Chris lead them through the the door connected to the room which now contained three dead bodies and into the next room. The sounds of birds crowing insistently echoed throughout the dimly lit room. As they filed through, several crows sat around on top of high shelves. The birds stared at them intently as they came through and Chris glanced up at them with a sharp glare.

“Careful. They may not look it, but in groups those infected crows will tear you to shreds. Forrest learned that the hard way,” the agent warned.

There were a set of stairs which Chris led them up and he took them through the next door. He walked inside a few feet and came to an immediate halt. They were in what appeared to be an attic style room which was very dusty and rather dark. 

“This isn't right. This room shouldn't be here.” Chris told them. “This room was on the second floor on the other side of the mansion. Not here...”

“This appears to be a dead end anyways. Let's go back through the other door.” David suggested.

Chris was still frozen in place, staring into the room. 

“Chris?” Ethan said, concerned.

“We have to get that mask,” he said.

Everyone looked at what he meant and sure enough, on the other side of the room there was a gray-white mask glinting slightly in the moonlight coming in from the small windows near the ceiling. 

Peter glanced at Chris and then the mask. “Okay then let's get it.”

He started forward and Chris grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“What?” he asked, slightly annoyed.

“This is where the giant snake was. I'll get the mask. You guys should get out of here.” Chris warned them.

Peter didn't seem to agree. “We can help.”

The BSAA agent wasn't convinced. “How? By flying at it? I don't think that's going to scare it.”

Before Peter could defend himself, Chris started for the other side of the room at a slow jog to grab the mask. He was nearly to it when suddenly the roof broke and a snake bigger than any of them had ever seen before slithered out of the hole, its head right in front of him. The snake hissed, its enormous mouth opening to expose fangs glistening with poison. Its mouth was easily large enough to swallow Chris whole.

“Shit!” Ethan shouted and opened fire on the snake. 

Chris threw himself out of the way as the snake reared its head back and attacked him. The snake missed him and was then hit by a spatter of bullets which only seemed to anger it. The snake's eyes locked on the gunmen and it dropped fully onto the floor, easily taking up most of the ground with its giant form. 

“Aaaughh!” Martin screeched as the snake picked him up in its mouth.

The soldier was swallowed whole and his screams were abruptly silenced. 

“You motherfucker!” Ethan cursed and fired at the snake with anger.

Running out of bullets, Ethan pulled out a combat knife and charged the giant creature. Chris saw what he was going to do.

“Ethan, No!” 

The snake bit into Ethan's mid-section and lifted him to swallow him up. Before the snake could do so, Sylar lifted a hand and blue electricity shot from it, hitting the snake. The giant serpent released Ethan with a screech of anger and pain and Ethan fell to the ground and lied still. Sylar continued to fry the snake with his lightning and after a minute or so the writhing snake gave a final cry of anguish before collapsing onto the ground, rendered motionless. The snake's eyes were still open but only the whites of the eyes could be seen and its mouth was partially open, tongue hanging limply out one side. It was definitely dead. 

Chris had grabbed the mask while all of this went on and was now by Ethan's side. Mohinder and Peter were there as well, as they knew how to supply medical aid but the damage was too much. Both of the snake's giant fangs had gone through Ethan's stomach, and besides the deadly poison that was working its way through the soldier's body, he had also lost far too much blood. Ethan wheezed loudly, desperately trying to gain air into his lungs but it was a losing battle. Peter felt Ethan's chest and placed his head close to him, listening.

“One of the fangs punctured a lung.” Peter told Chris grimly.

Chris merely nodded and held Ethan until his last breath escaped him and he moved no more. Peter and Mohinder stood back up and Chris followed their example. He picked up Ethan's knife which had fallen beside its owner and with a frustrated cry of fury he threw the knife into the far wall. The act was followed by a string of curses.

“Why do I have to relive this nightmare? Why?!” he screamed at no one in particular. 

David came forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man. Let's get out of here.”

Chris kicked the head of the dead snake before he picked up the mask two of his men had died in order to procure. 

“If we have to find the other three masks so help me God..” he muttered.

Mohinder and Peter exchanged looks. Three more masks? Indeed, God help them. Fortunately, there was no need to find any more masks. When they left the way they had come, instead of being back in the room with the crows, they were in a room lit only by a boiler and a couple torches that hung on the wall. Immediately to their left were statues with four different faces carved in. Three masks were already on three of the statues and Chris moved over to them and placed the final mask onto the last statue. 

“So what happens now?” Danko asked Chris.

Chris didn't need to answer. As soon as the mask was in place, a horrible grinding sound came from above and behind the group. They all turned to watch as a metal coffin, leaking what appeared to be blood, fell to the stone floor with a resounding crash. Danko started towards the metal box with a frown. He didn't see how this could help them. 

“I wouldn't do that if I were you. That coffin contains what used to be Trevor.” 

“And who is this Trevor?” Danko asked, approaching the coffin cautiously.

“The mansion we're in. It's better known as the Trevor mansion. It's the place he designed, remember. His wife and daughter were the ones who were experimented on. I hope we don't run into his daughter Lisa Trevor. I already told you what she became because of the virus. I don't want to have to kill that poor child again..” Chris trailed off.

Danko didn't seem to understand why any of it mattered. 

“So the architect of the mansion's corpse is in there, big deal. Why should I be afraid?”

David seemed upset as he snapped at the other man. “Have you seen what happens to things that die around here, huh? Are you that big of an idiot?”

Chris could tell David was getting riled up. He was already permanently on edge because of what had happened to their fellow teammates. Danko hesitated just as he reached the coffin and looked back at Chris.

“What's in there?” Danko queried.

“A crimson head, or rather, a superzombie.” Chris answered.

“There are superzombies now?” Danko asked, an eyebrow raised.

Chris sighed tiredly. “You don't even want to know what I've all had to fight in my entire life. Why do you think I so easily believe some of you people have abilities as you so brashly claim. I've seen a lot in my life. I guess it just becomes simpler to believe eventually, though it's never easier to accept.”

“I'll make sure to be extra careful.” Danko said patronizingly. 

He kicked the lid off of the coffin but the decaying corpse did not move. He glanced back up at Chris.

“Guess you were wrong.”

“Ngauuh.” 

An unsettling sound emanated from the corpse in the coffin and it bolted upright quickly and reached to grab Danko at much faster speed than the other zombie they had encountered.

“Oh no you don't!” Danko shouted.

He turned, aimed quickly, and fired two rounds into the superzombie's skull. The creature crumpled to the stone floor, falling out of its coffin. 

“Quick bastard,” he cursed.

“Told you.” Chris said.

But the man missed Chris's last comment as he had spotted something in the coffin.

“What's this?” Danko muttered, reaching in to retrieve the item.

He held up a small journal. Chris walked over, accepting the book and flipped it open to the last few entries.

“It's Trevor's diary...” Chris told them.

“Read it,” one of Danko's remaining two men said.

Surprised eyes moved to him. The man hadn't spoken the entire time they were there. Chris glanced at him and then at the others. No one moved to object to the idea so Chris cleared his throat before reading out loud from   
the diary.

“November 24, 1967. Eleven days have passed since arriving on this estate. How did I end up like this? A guy in a lab coat came with a plate of skimpy meal and said to me, “Sorry to put you through this, but it's for security reasons.” That's when it hit me. It all makes sense now. There are only two people that know the secret of this mansion, Sir Spencer and myself. If they kill me, Sir Spencer will be the only person that knows the secret. But for what purpose? It doesn't matter now. It's too dangerous here. My family...I hope they are all right. I've decided to escape...Jessica, Lisa, I pray you are safe. November 26, 1967. How could I be so careless? I lost my favorite lighter-the one Jessica gave me for my birthday. Now it's going to be that much harder to get out of this dark place. November 13th, the date when my fate was sealed. My aunt was hospitalized just three days before that. Jessica and Lisa said that they were going to visit her. I wish I could be there with them. But wait, even as I'm writing my memory is coming back to me more vividly. Just before I passed out, I remember the men in the lab coats said something like, “Most likely your family is already...” I pray for their safety.” 

“Is this really necessary? The ramblings of a dead man?” Danko asked impatiently. 

“With all do respect sir, shut the fuck up. I want to hear this. Maybe we can learn something useful,” his man said with complete seriousness. 

Danko's eyes widened in surprise. “Fine, Jefferson. We'll hear the rest, calm down.”

Chris lowered his gaze back to the diary pages and continued reading. 

“November 27, 1967. Somehow I managed to get out of that room. But getting out of this mansion won't be as easy. I have to get past all the booby traps. Tiger eyes, Gold Emblem...I have to try and remember for my own sake. November 29, 1967. I can't get out. I have tried every possible way to escape but only to be faced with the reality that I'm trapped. I've been everywhere. The laboratory with the large glass tubes filled with formaldehyde and those dark, wet and eerie caves...What can I do? At first I didn't want to believe my eyes. But that familiar high-heeled shoe in the corridor...It was like reflex. One name came to my mind, Jessica! I don't want to believe they share the same fate as me. No! I can't give up hope. I have to hope they're alive. November 30, 1967. I haven't had anything to eat or drink for the past few days I feel like I'm going crazy. Why is this happening to me? Why do I have to die like this? I was too obsessed with designing this ghastly mansion. I should have known better. November 31, 1967. It was a dark and damp underground tunnel. And another dead end. But even in the darkness something caught my eye. Carefully, I lit the last match, I had to see what it was. A grave! But deeply engraved into the stone was my name! “George Trevor”. At that instant, it all became clear to me. Those bastards knew from the beginning that I'd die here and I fell right into their trap. But it's too late now. I'm losing it. Everything is becoming so far away. Jessica...Lisa...Forgive me. Because of my ego, I got both of you involved in this whole damn conspiracy. Forgive me. May God justify my death in exchange for your safety. George Trevor.” 

He slowly closed the diary and gazed down at the zombified remains of George Trevor. 

“Poor bastard...” Danko's soldier murmured. 

Chris frowned. He'd felt something in the back of the book. He tilted the diary slightly and something shiny fell to the floor with a metal clang. He bent down and picked it up. 

“A key?” Noah spoke out loud.

“A gold key.” Chris confirmed, he thought hard on where that door might have been.

Great. Now they just had to find a door which unlocked with a gold key...


	5. Hunters

Chapter 4

\--Hunters--

 

They exited the room and walked through a cemetery, finding themselves back in the main foyer area but on the second landing. Chris confirmed this was now the correct layout of the mansion and he led the way to the left, up some stairs, to a single door which the gold key went to. They moved into the next room to find themselves in a red carpeted hallway. The first of them had barely stepped into the hallway when Chris stopped short and they all listened, following his example. 

“Hnnnhh...huaaah...hnnnnhhhhh...” 

The low, sad moans of several zombies could be heard from somewhere in the hall. David motioned to Chris that he would lead the way and defuse the situation. Shuffling sounds, most likely the noise the undead creatures made when they walked. David led the way with his assault rifle raised and turning the corner to the left, he fired twice. Then he fired three more times. A loud thud of something heavy falling to the floor and then another thud followed soon after. 

David motioned for the rest of the group to follow but then raised a hand for them to stop again. The look on his face was one of uncertainty and confusion. The rest soon saw why this was. A young female in a STARS uniform came running around the corner straight towards them without noticing. She had short, boyishly cut hair and an overall young face. The woman wore an expression of worry and fright but also grim determination. She passed directly through Chris's body and through the others as she ran past and exited through the door they had just arrived from. Chris's eyes followed her the whole way until she was gone. 

“Did you know her?” Nathan asked, noticing the agent's gaze still staring at the spot she had disappeared in.

Chris blinked a couple times and pulled himself back into the present, focusing on Nathan.

“Yeah. That was Rebecca Chambers, a real whiz kid. Really knew her chemistry and all that. She was only 18 and on her first mission for STARS as a medic. Rebecca was the only one from Bravo team to survive.”

“Chris! Looks like another diary. This one was lying on the floor over some broken glass.” David said.

The team commander walked over to him as the group gathered in the small hallway as best they could. The heroes were feeling pretty out of place but they didn't know how else they were going to get out of there without Chris's guidance. 

“Maybe there will be something useful in here.” David said, his voice hopeful as he handed him the diary.

The man nodded. “Maybe.”

He opening the book and again flipped towards the end. “These dates are about two months before we came here. It was July 24, 1998 when we stumbled upon this mansion. I'll never forget that date.”

Chris exhaled slowly before he started to read from the book. 

“May 9, 1998. At night, we played poker with Scott the guard, Alias, and Steve the researcher. Steve was really lucky, but I think he was cheating. What a scumbag. May 10, 1998. Today, a high ranking researcher asked me to take care of a new monster. It looks like a gorilla without any skin. They told me to feed them live food. When I threw in a pig, they were playing with it...tearing off the pig's legs and pulling out the guts before they actually ate it.”

He paused in his reading, shuddering involuntarily. 

David expressed concern. “Are you alright, Chris?” 

“They're called chimeras...” 

He seemed completely spaced out as he said it.

“Chris?” David asked.

“Sorry, just remembering the horrible way they looked. The claws..the sounds they made... Sorry.” Chris apologized again and returned to his reading. 

“May 11, 1998. Around 5 o'clock this morning, Scott came in and woke me up suddenly. He was wearing a protection suit that looks like a space suit. He told me to put one on as well. I heard there was an accident in the basement lab. It's no wonder, those researchers never rest, even at night.”

“Must have been when the T-Virus first leaked.” David surmised.

Chris nodded in agreement and without lifting his eyes from the pages, he read on.

“May 12, 1998. I've been wearing this annoying space suit since yesterday. My skin grows musty and feels very itchy. By way of revenge, I didn't feed those dogs today. Now I feel better. May 13, 1998. I went to the medical room because my back is all swollen and feels itchy. They put a big bandage on my back and the doctor told me I didn't need to wear the space suit anymore. I guess I can sleep well tonight. May 14, 1998. When I woke up this morning, I found another blister on my foot. It was annoying and I ended up dragging my foot as I went to the dogs' pen. They have been quiet since morning, which is very unusual. I found that some of them escaped. I'll be in real trouble if some of the higher-ups find out. May 15, 1998. Even though I didn't feel well, I decided to go see Nancy. It's my first day off in a long time. But I was stopped by the guard on the way out. They say the company has ordered that no one leave the grounds. I can't even make a phone call. What kind of joke is this?! May 16, 1998. I heard a researcher who tried to escape from this mansion was shot last night. My entire body feels burning and itchy at night. When I was scratching the swelling on my arm, a lump of rotten flesh dropped off. What the hell is happening to me?”

He hesitated, silence filling his brief pause. He didn't seem to want to read on any more because they all knew what was happening to this worker but Chris did anyways.

“May 19, 1998. Fever gone but itchy. Hungry and eat doggy food. Itchy itchy Scott came. Ugly face so killed him. Tasty. 4 Itchy. Tasty.”

“How could such a horrible thing happen and nobody heard about it?” Claire demanded, sounding upset.

He sadly shook his head. “Umbrella was good at covering their tracks. It was only four years ago that we finally brought the truth about Umbrella into the public eye. Wesker actually played a part in that. He testified against Umbrella to bring them down.”

“He helped? Why would he do that and then try to spread a different virus himself?” Nathan asked.

“Wesker only cares about Wesker. He probably wanted the viruses for himself and Umbrella only got in the way of his plans I'm sure.” Chris said with a shrug.

“I really think we need to get out of this mansion.” Peter determined.

And David agreed, whole-heartedly. “I second that. Let's get the hell out of here.”

The group, now consisting of Peter, Nathan, Noah, Mohinder, Matt, Claire, Sylar, Danko, two of Danko's soldiers, David, and Chris continued down the red carpeted hallway. Chris led the way and he made a left and then stopped at the second door on the right and went through. There was an office of some kind which they passed through to get to a door on the other side. The door took them into another hall near a set of stairs which the BSAA commander immediately started down. He definitely knew where he was going. 

“What's that sound?” Sylar suddenly asked.

Everyone halted in their tracks to fix their eyes on the speaker, who was at the back of the group still next to the door they had just come through. Chris, who was at the bottom of the stairs, looked at Sylar.

“What do you hear?” he asked.

The other man frowned, listening harder. “It sounds like slow but heavy plodding steps. Coming from the door right across from you, Chris. No wait, they're speeding up.”

Chris's expression became one of alarm. “Do they sound almost like the feet are wet?”

Sylar nodded. “Yeah and they're getting louder.”

Chris's gaze hardened and he turned and swung his gun to the door across from him. No sooner had he done this, the door knob started to turn. Everyone except Chris stared in shock as a reptilian creature about five feet tall with long arms and rather large razor sharp claws on each hand and foot came padding through the doorway. As soon as the door was open, it came running at Chris and leaped to attack with a shrill cry. Chris fired but saw his handgun wasn't going to do enough to bring it down and he jumped to the left into a small space where there was another door. Upon seeing the door, he leaped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. The creature left a long claw mark on the floor where Chris had been only moments earlier. Instead of pursuing further, the monstrosity slowly turned and fixed its eyes on the large group of possible prey. 

David was firing his assault rifle, Danko and his two men doing the same but the thing continued towards David anyways. Then suddenly it sprang slightly to David's left at one of Danko's men, who stood near David on the lower staircase. With a single swipe, the soldier's head fell from his body. Danko fired at the monster point blank multiple times and finally it flew backwards off the stairs. Falling onto its back in a pool of expanding blood, the creature writhed until it finally died and went still, eyes glazing over. But there was no time to relax. Two more creatures identical to the first came plodding through the open door at a run. 

David, Danko, and Danko's remaining soldier fired upon the first while the second creature sprang up and landed on the second floor landing, right next to Mohinder and Sylar. Mohinder tried to shove it off of the balcony with his enhanced strength but the creature only stumbled back a bit before angrily hissing at him. It swung a clawed hand at him and Mohinder shrank back, ducking the attack. Sylar lifted a hand and sent the creature flying into the railing and over. The monster fell to the floor below and jumped back onto its feet with a shriek of fury. It leaped back to the second floor landing, aiming to kill him. Sylar electrocuted it with his power but the thing seemed to just ignore the pain and continued running for him. It attacked and Sylar reflexively held up a hand to protect himself. A claw scratched a deep wound into Sylar's arm before Mohinder jumped onto its back and pounded on it. He would have snapped its neck but the creature didn't appear to have much of a neck. With the creature occupied, Sylar raised a few fingers and cut its throat with his power. The monster fell to the floor, dead. 

Meanwhile, Danko and his soldier ran out of ammo and his man panicked. 

“Hold your place!” Danko yelled, but his soldier ran for the open door, trying to make it past the creature. 

He didn't get far though because as soon as he got past the monster, it sensed him and jumped onto his back. The soldier screamed in agony as the monster's claws dug into his back, ripping it to shreds. With its latest victim dead, it turned its head towards the nearest prey which happened to be David standing by the foot of the stairs. And of course as luck would have it, the BSAA soldier raised his weapon to fire, only to hear a dry click. The creature started lumbering towards him and David's eyes widened in horror. 

“Hey you ugly reptilian bastard!” Chris shouted, exiting the storage room he had dove into.

There was a handgun in his hand but it was silver unlike his other gun and appeared to have a chamber instead of taking clips. Chris glared at the creature as it slowly paused to gaze at him with its beady black eyes.

“Chew on this!” the team leader yelled and fired a bullet into its head.

“Hrraaaooh!” 

The monster shrieked in agony and it dropped to the floor, spasming erratically until finally it lay still. A pool of blood expanded beneath it. Chris visibly relaxed.

“Thank God the same weapons are where they were that night too. And that they're real like the monsters.” Chris said to the group. 

He took in the two dead soldiers and then David's shocked gaze. Finally regaining his calm, he asked Chris a question. 

“Is that a magnum?” David asked him, impressed.

“Yep. Holds six rounds and I have an extra six bullets. Used one so that leaves me with 11.”

David's expression changed to uncomfortable realization. “Uh... How many rounds you got left for your handgun?”

“I have a full clip in my gun but that's the last of it. Why?” he asked him curiously.

“We kind of ran out.” David informed reluctantly.

Chris's expression was grave. He turned his gaze to Danko. “You're out of ammo too?”

Danko confirmed. “Yeah, I used all of it on whatever those freaks were.”

“Those were hunters.” Chris informed him. “We're going to be in real trouble because last time, the mansion was full of them and they aren't much affected by regular bullets.”

“I noticed.” Danko commented.

Another thought seemed to have occurred to Chris. He turned and scanned his eyes across the rest of the group.

“Some of you have powers, right? Anything useful against these things?”


	6. Jill's Fate

Chapter 5

\--Jill's Fate--

 

Chris led the way with Sylar next to him. The cut on Sylar's arm had already healed and there was no evidence that he had ever been scratched. The other heroes trailed behind them and David and Danko followed from the rear. They were no longer armed but they could at least keep watch and stay alert in the back. The open doorway the hunters had come through took them into a dark hall. Glancing around, Chris chose the door to the right and against the left wall. That door took them outside on some sort of walkway to another door. The door at the other end stood open and he figured the hunters must have come from there. Moving through the open door they walked into a warehouse and the agent led them through there into a large stone courtyard. Soft padded feet could be heard in the otherwise silent night. Chris held up a hand for them to pause.

“Dogs,” he whispered.

Claire didn't seem to understand why that was cause to whisper. “Well they're just dogs right? Why are we being careful?”

Chris educated her. “No. Skinless dogs. The guard dogs infected with the T-Virus. The ones who ate Joseph and who are the reason why we couldn't just walk out the front door.”

Claire seemed to remember and simply stood a little closer to her father. “Oh.”

Chris seemed to be trying to think of the best way to get through them but Sylar simply strode past him. “I'll handle this.”

“Sylar, wait!” Chris called out to the other man who ignored him.

The group followed and the sounds of several dogs growling broke the quiet of the night. Sylar lifted his hands and electricity coursed into the four, no five skinless dogs that tried to attack him. Within minutes the dogs were dead and Chris raised an eyebrow. 

“If only you were there that night of the mansion incident.” Chris said wishfully.

Sylar smirked, taking in his sound victory. The look in his eyes seemed to change Chris's opinion. “Maybe not... You seem to enjoy power a little too much.”

He glanced at Chris. “And what's wrong with enjoying power?”

“The last person I trusted who liked power a little too much was Wesker.” Chris replied.

Sylar's smile faltered as he and the BSAA commander stared at each other. When Sylar didn't say anything back to him, Chris turned his gaze ahead.

“Come on, we should keep moving,” he suggested.

He started for a very old elevator shaft and saw the battery was missing. 

“Okay then, the doors over there I guess.” Chris said, pointing to a metal gate to their left. 

Before they could even start to head over there though, a familiar voice turned their attention to the area of the courtyard they had just left behind. An image of the Wesker from ten years ago was pacing around the area. It was easy to tell the difference from his past and present self not only because he was partially see-through, but also because he was wearing the STARS uniform. The man was on a cell phone and he strolled right near their group, clearly not able to see them. 

“Yes. Yes. It will be done.” Wesker said into the phone, sounding impatient and annoyed.

“But it won't be long now before they discover I'm the traitor. There are certainly enough documents around here with my name on it.”

Wesker paused, listening. “Of course it won't be a problem. I'm handling it. I've got the STARS running around finding keys for Spencer's ridiculous traps and puzzles. If they even make it to the labs I've released the hunters from their cages. Don't worry, the STARS will never make it out of here alive.”

Wesker hung up the phone and started to put it away but it rang suddenly. “Yes.”

“Calm down Birkin.”

Chris explained the name to the others. “William Birkin. He was a researcher for Umbrella like Wesker. Birkin created the G-Virus which also got loose in Raccoon City. Umbrella assassinated him so they could steal his research before it was destroyed along with Raccoon City. Before he died he injected himself with his G-Virus and turned into an uncontrollable abomination. He couldn't control himself and nearly killed his own daughter because of it. A rookie cop by the name of Leon Kennedy managed to take him out with the help of my sister Claire.”

He turned his attention back to the image of Wesker when the man spoke into the phone again.

“So Marcus succeeded... The virus will undoubtedly reach Raccoon City now. It's only a matter of time. I suggest you get your family out of there before it's too late... Forget your work Birkin. It's over. Take a sample and get out of the city.”

Wesker hung up and put the cell phone away. Pausing to remove his sunglasses and wipe the lenses, he stared off into a space straight ahead and spoke to himself.

“Indeed...it is time to leave the sinking ship that is Umbrella.”

That was the first time any of the others had seen Wesker's eyes before they'd become mutated. His eyes had once been an interesting gray-blue. Then the captain put his sunglasses back on and left the courtyard, using the doors Chris and the others were going to go through. 

Chris stared after him, watching him go.

“I didn't know he was planning on leaving Umbrella from the beginning...” he spoke, thinking out loud. 

“Chris.” 

The whole group turned. Eva was standing across the courtyard from the doors they had come through only minutes before. She strode over to the group, glancing down at the recently deceased dogs as she went. 

“Guess I missed the barbecue,” the girl commented with a small smile.

“Eva, where did you go?” Chris asked her, staring hard at her. Again he was struck by how familiar she seemed.

“I was trying to find out why all of this is happening but didn't get much. However, I learned some old friends of yours are still very much alive.” Eva said this meaningfully to Chris.

The man frowned, not knowing who she could possibly mean and before he could ask her about it, Danko interrupted. 

“I want to know what you're doing here. What do you have to do with all of this? I mean, shouldn't you be in school or something?” Danko asked her very demeaningly. 

Eva didn't seem to be bothered by his unfriendly attitude though. She simply looked him straight in the eye and retorted, “I've already finished school with a PhD in Genetics with highest honors.”

Everyone seemed stunned by this revelation and Danko clenched his jaw tightly.

“Then shouldn't you be in a lab or office somewhere, with you being a genius and all?” he asked with narrowed eyes. He didn't like being embarrassed, especially by a seventeen-year-old girl. 

“I prefer fieldwork,” she replied and pulled her gun. 

Chris started to reach for his own weapon alarmingly, seeing as he was the only one armed. But Eva didn't mean them any harm. She simply turned, aimed at the gate they were planning on going through and fired. The single bullet pierced the lock and it broke, falling to the cement with a clatter.

“That should make it easier to continue, don't you think?”

She holstered her weapon and started for the door. Chris was the first to follow after her while Danko was the last, as he was still feeling a bit sore about this Eva situation. That left the foremost of Danko's mind, however, when Chris suddenly started groaning in pain and clutching his head. Claire and Noah were walking beside him and Claire was the first to notice.

“Chris are you okay?” Claire asked, concerned.

“I don't know... My head... Ahhh!” He began to scream.

He fell to his knees, clutching his head in unbearable agony. “Ahh! God! What is this?! Gahhh!”

He continued to scream out in pain. Eva rushed to his side just as his head fell back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Chris collapsed onto his side, his eyes open but unseeing. Again, only the whites of his eyes could be seen. Peter checked him over. 

“He's still breathing.” 

“Look.” Noah told them.

They did look. Images were appearing in the courtyard but along with the images, a place was appearing. A hall with stone walls and floors. Coming down the hallway with weapons out were two people dressed in combat clothes which read BSAA. The group recognized both of them. One was Chris looking pretty similar to what he did now and the other was Jill. Jill had deep blue eyes and even though she wore a cap, it was clear her hair was a dark brown from the ponytail sticking out the back. Odd, since the Jill they'd seen earlier that night had had blonde hair and pale eyes. Even so, it was still very much the same woman. 

The duo hesitated outside a set of double doors, exchanged looks, and then burst into the room with Chris in the lead. The images shifted to encompass only that room, the hallway disappearing. Inside the room there was a wheelchair collapsed on its side and an old man lying in a pool of blood, very much dead. But the images moved past this and focused on a tall man standing near a large window with his back to Chris and Jill. He and Jill both looked stunned to see the superhuman being. Wesker was dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing when Chris had fought him earlier that night in the mansion foyer. The tyrant slowly turned around to face the newcomers. Even though he wore his usual dark sunglasses, the glow of his red eyes shone through for a fraction of a second as his lips curved into a smile. 

“Wesker!” the image of Chris shouted.

Immediately following his shout, Chris and Jill opened fire on their foe. Wesker weaved and dodged the bullets with ease, moving with a blur of motion. He reached Chris and grabbed the younger man's arm, twisting so the BSAA member was forced to drop his gun. Then Wesker threw a punch into Chris's face, disappeared, reappeared on Chris's right side and hit him in the chest and then face. Chris yelled out in surprise and pain as he stumbled back. Wesker was already moving again. Nothing but a black blur as he headed for Jill who was still shooting at him. The tyrant reached her and lifted her up by the neck. Jill's gun slipped from her fingers as he slammed her against the wall, choking her. 

Jill struggled to break free with little luck but fortunately Chris came to her aid and punched Wesker across the side of his face. Wesker released Jill as Chris started to attack him and the ex-captain avoided Chris's blows with frightening ease. When Chris threw another punch, Wesker enclosed Chris's fist with a gloved hand, squeezing. Chris gritted his teeth to avoid more loudly expressing his pain and tried to break free. Wesker didn't give him time though as the blonde man spun, restraining Chris's arms, and punched him in the face with excessive force. Chris grunted as his head snapped painfully to the side in response to the blow but he didn't give himself time to recover from the hit, instead twisting his body to side kick Wesker. The tyrant blocked the attack and immediately disappeared from the spot in a blur as Jill opened fire on him. Wesker brought an arm down against Chris's back, sending him stumbling, before running and twisting to avoid the bullets from Jill's gun. 

Her gun out of bullets, Jill ran towards Wesker even as Chris attacked him. The man blocked Chris's punch and sent his own fist into Chris's face, knocking him to the side. Jill reached them and in a flash, a combat knife was in her hand. Wesker turned his attention to her as she slashed at him with her knife. He blocked her and sent her flying against the far wall with a single hand hitting her stomach. Jill smashed into a glass case which shattered upon impact with her back, and she fell to her knees with a cry of pain. 

Chris and Wesker were now once again locked in hand to hand combat but it was clear who was winning. The tyrant got in several blows before picking the BSAA soldier up by the throat and lifting him high into the air. Wesker slammed Chris against a long table and dragged him along the entire length before flinging him to the stone floor under the large window. 

The felled man grunted in immense pain at the burning his back felt from the splinters now embedded there. He had been thrown to the floor and had rolled onto his side. Chris tried to move from where he laid on his side but he could feel his body giving out. Slowly he shook the disorientation from his head but could barely do anything more. From where she had fallen, Jill started to get back on her feet as Wesker started towards Chris.

The BSAA agent could hear Wesker's footsteps and he tilted his head in time to see a gloved hand coming at him. Chris was lifted high above Wesker's head by one hand and he struggled to free himself from the vise-like grip with no success. Now standing, Jill saw Chris in trouble and knew Wesker was about to kill him.

“No!” Jill shouted in horror as she raced towards the two men. 

Wesker smiled up at his struggling prey and began to flex his free hand. 

The group watching these images playing out recognized that motion. Wesker had done it right before he'd punched a fist completely through the BSAA soldier, Josh's, chest. 

“Let's finish this.” Wesker said to Chris, raising his free hand and clenching it.

Before he could though, Jill dove into their opponent and they both went crashing through the large glass window. Chris climbed to his feet and ran to the broken window.

“Jill!” he shouted fearfully.

He peered down into the darkness searching for any sign of Jill or Wesker but there was nothing.

“Jill!!” Chris cried out again.

Then as suddenly as they had appeared, the images vanished and Chris was sitting up. He groaned and rubbed his still slightly throbbing head.

“What just happened?” he asked, disoriented. 

Eva filled him in. “I think we just got a glimpse of your past. You, Jill, Wesker, and a window.”

Noah offered a hand and Chris took it, climbing to his feet. With one hand still massaging his head, he confirmed. Now they had all seen what had brought Jill to be in Wesker's control. 

“Oh.” Chris said. “That was two years ago. Jill and I had heard one of the founders of Umbrella, Oswell Spencer, was still alive and planning to bring the Umbrella Corporation back. We went after him, hoping he would lead us to Wesker. When we got there Wesker had already killed Spencer and...wait a minute.”

Chris halted his train of thought on that incident and lowered his hand from his head as he looked at Eva.

“How did you know his name was Wesker? I never told you it was.”


	7. Umbrella's First Victim

Chapter 6

\--Umbrella's First Victim--

 

Now all eyes were on Eva and when she said nothing, Chris pointed his gun at her. He realized she had probably heard him shout Wesker's name in the flashback but the fact that she hadn't proceeded to point that out told Chris she knew more than she was letting on. 

“You may be a kid but if you don't start explaining what you're doing here, there's going to be trouble.” Chris told her, his expression proved he was serious.

Eva didn't react at all to the fact that there was a weapon in her face. She met his gaze but remained silent. After a moment of this tense situation, Claire tried to get through to her.

“Come on, Eva. We don't want anyone to get hurt here. Just meet us halfway. Tell us why you're here and you don't have to tell us anything more.”

When Chris gave Claire a sharp glare, she quickly added, “At least for now.”

Eva seemed amused by this. “You think just because we are near the same age you could understand me better?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “I don't know, Eva, but I'm not the one with a gun to my head.”

She blinked calmly back at the other blonde girl. “I could kill you all if I so chose to but there is no sense in killing the weak when there is no gain.”

Chris's eyes widened at the insinuation she had just made.

“I've heard that somewhere before... Who are you? Have I met you before?” Chris demanded.

“No and today is the first time I have laid eyes upon you as well.” Eva informed him.

It was growing more hostile between Chris and Eva and Claire quickly tried to intervene. 

“Look, you said you were here to help us. So just tell us why you want to help us. You can tell us that at least, right?”

Eva paused before replying. “That isn't entirely accurate.”

Claire seemed shocked. “What?!”

She shifted her gaze from Claire to Chris. “I actually came here for your help, Chris.”

“My help?” Chris asked, confused. 

Eva's phone rang. “I'm sorry, Chris.”

“For what?” he asked her with a frown.

Suddenly Eva lashed out with her right leg, striking the gun from Chris's hand. Then she was running across the courtyard. She climbed up a wall that would be extremely difficult for most to climb and vaulted to the other side, disappearing from sight. Chris bent down to pick up his gun with an annoyed grunt. 

“What is it about honesty that is just so damn difficult for people?” Chris muttered.

No one answered him and he wasn't really looking for anyone to. He holstered his gun and motioned with a hand. 

“Let's go. Be on guard in case we run into Eva again. She doesn't seem to be against us but she's also hiding something and that doesn't sit well with me.”

The rest of the group seemed to agree with this statement as they continued across the courtyard and through the now open gate. They entered into a narrow hallway of some kind and Chris cursed, kicking the wall.

“We're back in the mansion again!” he complained. “Nothing's where it's supposed to be so how am I supposed to get us out of here?” 

“You're asking us?” Matt asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

Chris sighed. “I don't know. Let's just see where this door takes us.” 

Since the hallway was so small, they had to move single file down the corridor and into the next room. The room turned out to be a bedroom. To their left was a door which upon quick inspection, was found to be a bathroom. Further into the bedroom, the room opened up more but not much more because there was a corpse hanging from the ceiling fan. The man had either committed suicide or someone else had hung him up there. A piece of paper lay on the desk and Chris retrieved it. The rest of the group lingered near the bathroom because they had no desire to come closer to the hanging corpse. 

“My dear Alma,” Chris read. “The fact that you have received this letter is both a joy and a sadness for me. I could not even talk to you because of that guy in the sunglasses. Alma, be calm and read this. I think I've told you that I moved to a pharmaceutical company's lab. They headhunted me. Last month, there was an accident in the lab and the virus we were studying escaped. All my colleagues who were infected by the virus are dead. To be accurate, they've become the living dead. They still wander around. Some of them are knocking on my room door desperately right now. But there's no sign of intelligence in their eyes. That cursed virus takes away all humanity from the human brain. Love, joy, sorrow, fear, humor...eternally. And Alma, even the memories of the days I spent with you...Yes, I'm infected. I did everything I could, but I could only delay the progress by a few days. The most frightening thing is, that I forget more about you by the day. So I chose a peaceful death, rather than become the living dead. Within an hour, I will have entered my eternal sleep. I do hope you'll understand my decision...Goodbye and forever yours, Martin Crackhorn.” 

Chris set the piece of paper back down on the desk. 

“Guy in the sunglasses, gee I wonder who that could have been.” His tone was audibly sarcastic.

But then his demeanor changed as he glanced around the room and spotted the shelves on the left wall. 

“Wait a minute, I think there's a secret passageway behind these shelves.”

Chris immediately headed over to them and studied the twin shelves for a moment. One of the shelves was jutting out farther than the other and with a strong push, he shoved the shelf out of the way to reveal a metal ladder. He smiled when he caught sight of the passageway.

“Found it. Okay, this way,” He told them and started down the ladder.

When everyone was at the bottom, they found themselves standing in a wide passageway. It was damp down here and smelled faintly of stinky water, like sewage. 

“Looks like someone dropped something.” Danko pointed out and he trotted over to a piece of paper.

“July 22, 1998. To the head of the security department “X-Day” is approaching. Complete the following orders within the week. Lure members of STARS into the lab and have them fight with the B.O.W. in order to obtain data of actual battles. Collect two embryos per B.O.W. type making sure to include all species except for Tyrant. Destroy the Arklay lab including all researchers and lab animals in a manner which will seem accidental. White Umbrella.”

“Sounds like we just found your old buddy's orders.” Danko told Chris, letting the paper fall to the ground again.

“Wesker is not my 'buddy'.” Chris informed him through gritted teeth. 

Danko ignored the annoyance, instead pondering the orders he had just read. “So what exactly is this Tyrant? It doesn't happen to be running around here, right?”

Chris shook his head. “Tyrant was in the lab, or at least until Wesker released it that night. Besides, we would know if Tyrant was loose.”

“Oh? And why is that?” Danko asked him skeptically. 

He seemed unable to believe that anyone could know more than him, no matter what the situation. Chris glanced at Danko.

“Because if Tyrant was loose, it would find us.”

The others exchanged looks, each of them now silently hoping this tyrant creature wouldn't cross their paths. Chris was already heading down the passageway though, weapon out to be cautious. There was a metal door at the end and to the right and they passed through it. When they were all through they found themselves to be standing near a lit fireplace in a cabin of some kind.

The group leader cursed silently under his breath. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. 

“What is it?” Noah asked when he noticed Chris's darkened expression.

“This is the cabin where I first met her, when I first met Lisa Trevor. Well, what she had become anyways.”

Chris started to back towards the door. “We need to get out of here, now.” 

The door started to open before they could go back through it. Chris shrank back as an indescribably hideous creature came through the door. The creature was deformed and hunched forward. It wore what looked to be human faces on its head making its own face impossible to find. It wore a very dirty white hospital gown and its hands were shackled together in front of it, along with its legs. When the creature walked, the shackles clanked audibly together and dragged along the ground. Upon noticing the large group, the thing began to moan sadly and urgently. Weird tentacle things sprung out of its back, whipping dangerously close to them. 

“Run!” Chris yelled and pointed to a small hallway that none of the others had noticed before. 

They ran down the small hall which took them past two beds and into another which held a single wooden door. Chris was at the rear and he shouted for them to hurry up. They all ran through the door and found themselves out in the quiet night. They heard gunshots from inside as the last of them, Matt and Mohinder, came running out of the cabin. A loud, horrific wail sounded from inside and they knew it was from that creature. Then Chris was running outside and he ran past them, shouting for them to follow. He led the way into the woods, weaving around trees and stepping over roots. An audible moan came to their left.

“Is that a-” Matt started.

“Yeah! There are zombies in these woods! Be careful to avoid them!” Chris yelled back.

Only one zombie was actually standing on the path that they found and started running on, but the creature was easily avoided by stepping off the path momentarily and going around it. The undead zombie noticed them after the first two ran past but it merely started after them at a slow shamble, unable to move any faster and so not really a threat to any of them. The path took them through a gate and another path. From this path, they saw that they were no longer in the mansion as they could see it from where they stood. They reached a dimly lit area outside, where there were two sets of double doors to choose from. 

Chris stopped and motioned for the rest of them to stop as well so they could catch their breath. 

“We should be far enough away. She's immune to bullets so we really had to get out of there.” Chris explained. 

“She?” Mohinder asked in confusion and disbelief.

“That was her, wasn't it?... Lisa.” Claire deduced, her voice quiet. “I saw a photo of a family. Dad, mom, and a little girl sitting on a table near one of those cots. I also found these.”

Claire handed a small journal over to Chris. He took it after a moment, his eyes watching her to make sure she was handling the situation okay. She was doing surprisingly well for a girl who was maybe 17 or 18 years old. She really did remind him of his own sister Claire when she had been 19. Chris smiled to himself. His sister had had spunk just like this girl and both of them were incredibly brave in such terrifying situations. 

Since everyone was catching their breaths anyways, he decided it couldn't hurt to read the journal.

“November 14, 1967. I feel dizzy after that shot they gave me. I don't see mom. Where did they take her? She promised that we would escape together. Did she escape alone and leave me behind? November 15, 1967. I found mom. We ate together. I was very happy. But she was a fake. Not my real mom. Same face but different inside. Have to find mom. Have to give face back to mother. I got mom's face back. Nobody can have my mom except me. I attach her face to me so she doesn't go away. Because mom sad when I meet her without her face.”

“That was, she was, wearing her mother's face. Oh God..” Mohinder bent over. 

He looked ready to throw up at the realization that the girl had ripped her mother's face off and wore it. He leaned with one hand against the wall of the shed, taking deep breaths. Chris continued reading despite this.

“November 17, 1967. From inside box, scent of mommy. Maybe true mother there. Stone box hard. It hurt. Steel rope in the way. Can't see mother becuz 4 stones. 19th. Daddy attacked first. Mom attacked second. Inside red and slimy, white and hard. Not true mom where. Dunno dad, found mom again. When attacked mommy, she moved no more. She screaming. Why? Just want to be with her. Mom, where? I miss you.”

Chris sighed deeply. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately too. A lot of cursing and sighing. 

“Umbrella claimed a lot of victims,” was all Chris said before he pushed through the double doors on the left and led them into something unexpected. They were in a hollowed out cavern of some kind. Chris cursed.

“Get out of one hole only to fall into another,” he said. “This is basically Lisa's playground.”

“Great...” Peter said to himself, squinting to see further into the barely lit cavern.


	8. There's Something Wrong with Chris

Chapter 7

\--There's Something Wrong with Chris--

 

The cavern branched off into two directions, right and left. From the right tunnel the faint noise of what sounded like fingers typing on a keyboard, and after a few steps they discovered the source of the noise. A tall woman was standing with her back to them, typing on a laptop. She wore matching heals to a very revealing and skimpy white dress and multiple accessories. The bracelets, earrings, and necklace looked like they probably cost a fortune. The woman's hair was dark brown and neatly tied back in a bun. Upon hearing their footsteps, her brown eyes widened as she took in the group of nine.

“Excella Gionne! So Tricell is involved in this.” Chris declared to the woman. “Where's Uroboros?!”

The woman, Excella, slammed the laptop closed and glared at him and the others.

“Maybe I'll tell you, maybe I won't,” the woman said with her nose upturned. She spoke with a heavy accent.

“What's Tricell?” Mohinder asked, hinting that he was slightly intrigued.

David answered him. “Tricell is a pharmaceutical company. If you ask me, they basically replaced Umbrella. This woman, Excella Gionne, is a high-ranking official with the company.”

“So you've done your homework.” Excella sneered. “Well that information won't do you any good here.”

“I can find out.” Matt told Chris, stepping forward. “I can read minds.”

He stared at Excella, concentrating hard so he could get into her mind. She frowned at him as Matt did this. The woman seemed to feel him getting into her head and she expressed her dislike for it.

“There's something here that she doesn't want us to find.” Matt started, tilting his head slightly.

Excella's eyes widened and she took a step away from them, bumping into the table.

“It's about a virus of some kind and something in that briefcase.” Matt informed them, pointing to a metal case that rested next to the computer. 

“Something about a virus called Progenitor? I don't know... She gives regular doses of something to that Wesker guy. I think he needs it for some reason... Yeah, he needs it in order for his own virus to remain stable.”

A low moan from the other tunnel, followed by the sound of dragging chains, broke Matt's concentration. Free from Matt's mind reading, Excella made a run for it. She grabbed the metal briefcase and ran down the cave tunnel, out of sight. Chris would have given chase but the low, sorrowful moan sounded again. The abominable creature Lisa Trevor had become was walking towards them from the left tunnel. 

“Come on!” David yelled and ran down the passageway on the right. 

The rest of the group followed and Chris stayed in the back, closest to Lisa since he was the only one armed. When he caught up to them, they were standing around an opening in the cavern. It was a square platform of some kind, with tall stones in each corner. At the center was a rusty metal coffin, and behind that was a doorway but it was blocked by metal bars. Chris took all of this in and remembered the last time he had fought Lisa. It had been ten years ago but he remembered the journal he had read only minutes earlier. Lisa had wrote something about four stones and he recalled that all Lisa really wanted was to be with her mother. 

“Sylar! You've got telekinesis or whatever that's called right?” Chris asked.

The man confirmed and looked at him curiously. “Yeah, why?”

Lisa's moan of misery grew louder.

“See those stones in the corners? Can you push them over the side with your power?”

Sylar nodded. “Done.” 

He focused and lifted a hand to each stone, knocking them off the edge with each motion just as Lisa entered the area. The others saw that the stones had been attached to chains and when the chains were dropped, the bars in front of the exit lifted and the top of the casket slid open. The creature, seeing the casket open up, shambled over to it and reached inside. She pulled out what was noticeably a human skull and lifted it up over her head. 

“Mooother!” 

Lisa wailed and they all watched as she threw herself over the side of the platform, her mother's skull cradled in her arms. Silence followed her demise and it was Claire who approached the coffin. Though she didn't seem to particularly want to, she peered into the casket. Noticing something, her expression became one of interest as she reached in and pulled out a sheet of very old paper.

“It's a letter.” Claire revealed and then proceeded to read it to them.

“To my Lisa. Day by day I can feel my consciousness drifting further away. The shots given to me by men in white clothes made some of mommy's itching go away. Today they gave me another shot saying it was “nutrition”. When they give me the shots mommy can think straight, but mommy's shocked and sad because mommy's unable to think of you all the time. Mommy's afraid. Afraid of forgetting everything, especially the memories of you and daddy...What your faces look like, how we used to be together...They're all starting to disappear somewhere dark in my mind. Oh Lisa, I wish I could touch your face and hold you in my arms right now, so that I can hold on to our wonderful memories of you and daddy. Lisa we can't stay here any longer, we have to escape! Listen to me Lisa. Our chance to escape is the next time when we go to that lab together. We'll both pretend that we are both unconscious and when that man in white clothes is off guard that will be our chance. When we're on the outside, let's look for daddy together. Okay sweetie? Be strong, Lisa. November 13, 1967. Jessica Trevor.” 

Angry tears filled Claire's eyes but she fought them back before they could escape.

“The people that did those things are gone, Claire. They can't hurt people anymore.” Chris said, trying to comfort her.

“Yeah but it's like you said. This Tricell company is just like Umbrella, right? So now there's another evil out there. I don't understand why someone would want to ever do such horrible things to others...” Claire said sadly. 

She placed the letter back into the coffin and turned to the others. “Let's just get out of here.”

“Oh no...” Chris started.

“What?” Peter asked him, appearing alarmed.

He didn't have to wait long for that answer. Chris pressed the palms of his hands against the sides of his head and lifted it as he began to scream the most horrendous cry of agony. 

“Stop! No!” Chris screamed out.

His eyes rolled back into his head and then he collapsed onto his side. Images began to swirl around the platform and it stopped when dark woods appeared at night. A group of people were searching the area with flashlights, handguns out. First it focused on Chris as he searched through the brush and trees. Then the people with him became clearer, one at a time. The first was a man with red brown hair, a few days growth around his mouth. This must have been the aforementioned Barry, back with the first images they'd witnessed in the mansion's foyer area. He was clearly muscular and he held a hefty looking handgun as he searched about. The next was Wesker, wearing his sunglasses even though it was night time and pitch black out. The third person was a young Chris, then Jill came into view walking away from Chris going further into the trees. The last was a man carrying an assault rifle and flashlight. He was most distinguishable by the red bandanna he wore around his head. This was Joseph. The man pointed his weapon wherever he looked, being cautious. His eyes were wide though and it was clear he was very nervous about being in the middle of the woods at night like this. 

The STARS member heard a noise and whipped his gun and flashlight around, searching the spot carefully but saw nothing. Thinking it was probably nothing the man visibly relaxed with a sigh of relief and lowered his rifle. The sound of grass being bent as something ran across it came from behind him. Joseph spun around just as something came out of the tall grass and leaped at him. He gave a shout of terror as a skinless dog attacked him. Gunshots rang out as he tried to shoot his attacker who was biting and clawing at him. More skinless dogs joined in, ripping and tearing his flesh off as they ate him alive. The STARS member's screams of agony pierced the quiet night and the other soldiers tried to detect where they were coming from through the trees. 

Jill was the first to come to her comrade's aide and she fired into the group of dogs as she stared in horror at the sight of her fellow STARS member being ripped apart. Her eyes were wide with shock and she fired until her gun ran out. The dry click echoed throughout as she continued to pull the trigger even though she was out of bullets. Jill just couldn't peel her eyes from the sight. By this time, her fallen comrade's screams had gotten quieter as the wounds overcame him, the pain simply too great. Joseph's screams became moans which eventually stopped too, when death finally took him mercifully. 

One of the skinless dogs seemed to sense Jill's presence. It turned its head, chewing on a piece of Joseph's flesh, blood dripping from its mouth. Her eyes widened further in fear and she started to back up. The dog growled and stepped towards her before breaking into a run to attack. Jill tripped and fell to the ground, the dog jumping to attack her. A gunshot rang out and the dog fell to the ground. Chris was standing there, his gun still aimed from firing. He ran forward to help her up as the gunshot alerted the other skinless dogs to their presence.

“Come on!” Chris shouted, helping Jill to her feet.

The two ran for their lives as the group of dogs gave chase. Above them, through the trees, a light shone overhead. The helicopter flew over them and Chris peered up in surprise and anger. 

“Hey! Brad! Where the hell's he going?!” 

With their helicopter gone, they had nowhere to run to and the dogs were gaining on them. Without much hope, Chris suddenly turned in his tracks and raised an arm over his head to defend himself as a dog sprang to attack. A bullet slammed into the dog, sending it to the ground. Stunned, Chris glanced behind him to find Wesker there with his weapon raised.

“Chris, this way!” Wesker called out. 

He fired a few more shots at the dogs as Chris and Jill ran past him. The other man, Barry, was also there firing at the dogs. The four of them ran, firing shots wildly behind them, hoping to hit the dogs. As they ran, someone yelled out. 

“Head for that mansion!”

Hearing the shout, Jill lifted her eyes to see a large and very eerie looking mansion coming into sight. 

Then the images faded and Chris was regaining consciousness. This time when he woke up, he placed a hand to his chest and grimaced in pain. He stood up with a groan. 

“This is getting old, fast.” Chris commented, tiredly.

He shook his head as if to shake away the pain, and lowered his hand from his chest. 

Noah was looking at him with a mixture of concern and suspicion. “You sure you're alright?” 

“I have no idea what's wrong with me but I'm fine now.” Chris told him, brushing off the concerned gazes.

“We were going to leave this creepy platform with the coffin then.” Nathan pointed out.

It was obvious he would like nothing more then to get out of the cavern. 

“No arguments here.” Mohinder piped up and he led the way out of the caves.

The group walked down several hallways, Chris and Sylar once again taking the lead. In one hallway there was a zombie, but other than that, there were no other surprises waiting. The next door they went through took them into a room which was easily distinguishable as a lab. There were various computers and also cryogenic tubes as tall as a person on the left. Chris paused, leaving Peter and Nathan to almost walk into him. They soon found why he had stopped. An image of Wesker from the night of the mansion incident was there. He was typing away at a computer. 

“Hey, it's you.” Claire told Chris.

He turned towards the door to see where his past self was, only to have himself from 1998 walk right through his present self. A young girl with short hair walked behind him. It was Rebecca Chambers and she peered around at the lab with curiosity. For only being eighteen years old, she had been one heck of a brave girl. The images of Chris and Rebecca were standing a few feet behind Wesker now. They already knew their captain was more than he seemed but still found it hard to believe. Wesker didn't even pause from his typing as the two STARS members approached so Chris spoke first.

“Wesker.”

“So you've come. Chris, you make me proud. Course, you are one of my men.” Wesker remained typing.

“Thanks.” Chris replied, clearly sarcastic.

Wesker turned suddenly and pointed his gun at Chris's head. Chris wasn't at all surprised.

“Since when, Wesker?” he asked his captain. 

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Since when have they been slipping you a paycheck?!” Chris asked, his voice rising as it grew more hostile. 

Wesker took a few steps closer, the gun still aimed at Chris's head. 

“I think you're a bit confused. I've always been with Umbrella. STARS were Umbrella's, no, rather my little piggies. The Tyrant virus leaked, polluting this whole place and unfortunately I have to give up my lovely members of STARS.” Wesker told Chris and Rebecca, educating his former subordinates. 

“You killed them with your own dirty hands..you son of a bitch!” Chris proclaimed angrily, pointing a finger accusingly at Wesker.

“No...” Rebecca murmured in horror and disbelief.

“Oh yes dear. Just like this.” Wesker said before he shot Rebecca in the chest. 

“Rebecca!” Chris cried out and turned to help her.

“Don't move.” Wesker commanded, pointing the gun at Chris's back.

“You...” Chris uttered as he turned his gaze back to Wesker.

“I don't think you want to die just yet. I have something that's of some interest to you.” 

Keeping the gun poised on Chris, he started typing on the computer again. When he was done, he tilted his head to look behind him at the large cryotank that held a monstrous looking creature. The thing in the tank must have been at least nine feet tall and had pale gray skin. It was muscular, broad shouldered, bald, and sexless. Its right hand was normal except for the fact that it had abnormally long fingers that were more like claws, and its left hand was literally a hand with gigantic claws. Each claw on the left hand was easily at least a foot long and at the center of its chest was a red mass which appeared to be its huge beating heart. The skin and lips had been peeled away so that it looked as though the creature was constantly grinning. The water began to drain from the tank and Chris realized Wesker had woken it from its slumber. 

“The ultimate life form, Tyrant.” Wesker revealed to Chris.

Surprisingly, Chris laughed out loud in disbelief. “Wesker, you've become senile!”

Wesker ignored his laugh as he walked over to the tank which contained his precious Tyrant, staring up at it in admiration. 

“Chris, you'll never understand.” 

Wesker gazed up at Tyrant and raised his arms out in a praising motion. “It's magnificent.” 

Tyrant was moving inside the tank now. Its eyes were open and it was staring at Wesker. For a moment it seemed as though the two of them locked eyes. Then it drew back its giant clawed hand and broke the glass of the tank, spearing through Wesker's stomach. Wesker cried out in pain and Chris shrank back as Tyrant stepped from its broken tank. It tossed Wesker's body across the room and Chris watched the body slam into a computer before sinking to the floor, unmoving in a pool of blood. 

Slowly Tyrant turned around and locked its eyes onto Chris. The large red mass on its chest was audibly beating, the heartbeat constant and terrifying to any observers. It began to lumber towards Chris as the STARS member continued to back away from the monster. 

The images were fading now. They watched as Tyrant vanished from sight, followed by Chris from the past, and then even the laboratory was disappearing. The group looked around themselves in surprise as they suddenly appeared back in the courtyard of the mansion. 

“What the-” Chris started but he was interrupted by his partner and leader of the Delta team.

“Chris! Quick! Come this way!” Sheva Alomar yelled to him.

Chris turned his eyes on her, surprised to see her there.

“Sheva! How did you find us? You were supposed to radio me when you got to the mansion.”

The young African woman shook her head. She seemed impatient and motioned for them to follow her before she disappeared through the door they had originally come through, when the group had originally arrived in the courtyard for the first time. Chris shrugged when he received questioning looks from the others before following after her. They came through the doors and found themselves in a building of some kind. It was an open area with metal flooring and straight ahead was a balcony with stairs leading down on either side. Sheva was nowhere in sight and Chris searched for her in confusion.

“Where did your partner go?” Danko asked Chris.

Sheva had completely disappeared.


	9. Preview of Uroboros

Chapter 8

\--Preview of Uroboros--

 

Chris's expression clearly portrayed his uncertainty as to his partner's whereabouts. He momentarily forgot about Sheva though, when he noticed the man seated in a chair directly under the balcony. The man was extremely pale skinned, almost a sickly gray color, and his bald head lay limply down on his chest. Upon closer examination, they noticed the man was strapped to the chair with metal restraints. A woman in a tight white dress came around a corner that Chris and the others hadn't seen until now. 

“Excella!” Chris called out, grabbing her attention.

The pompous woman sneered at them. “You don't know when to quit, do you?”

“Excella, where's Sheva?!” the BSAA soldier demanded.

Excella wrinkled her nose, disapproving of his tone he was taking with her. She crossed her arms across her chest and looked down her nose at them. 

“If you can behave yourselves, maybe I'll tell you,” she snottily told them. 

Matt started to come closer, his eyes on her as he began to focus on her mind. Knowing what he was trying to do, she stepped towards the stairs and wagged her finger at him.

“No, no, no. Don't play your tricks with me.”

“So you've made it this far,” a cold, flat voice echoed from above.

Wesker was standing on the balcony, his gloved hands placed on the railing as he looked down at them. 

“Wesker!” Chris shouted, running forward so that he now stood beside Matt.

The man's lips upturned in that slight smile of his which would actually be a nice smile, if he didn't clearly use it to intimidate those around him. 

“Too bad you won't make it much further.” Wesker added.

“Wesker! Where's Sheva?!” Chris asked forcefully. 

He raised an eyebrow at the younger man. “You expect me to keep track of your team, Chris? Not very good leadership on your part.” 

Wesker raised up his hands in proclamation as he proceeded to deliver his message to Chris and the others.

“Uroboros is on the eve of its appearance! Your feeble attempts only delay the inevitable. The entire world will be infected. A new genesis is at hand and I will be the creator!”

Chris glared up at him. “You've lost your mind, Wesker!” 

The man lowered his gaze back to Chris and smirked. “Natural selection leaves the survivor stronger and better. Soon even you will understand, Chris. One glimpse of my world and it will all make perfect sense.”

“Enough talk! Where's Uroboros?” Chris questioned angrily. 

Wesker turned his eyes to Excella, who was standing at the foot of the stairs. “Excella, why don't you enlighten our guests.”

She grinned maliciously at the group. “Certainly.” 

Excella walked over to the gray skinned man strapped in the chair and reached into her dress, pulling out a capped syringe. Removing the cap she placed the needle to the man's arm and injected the red fluid into a vein on the captive's arm. As soon as she injected it, she backed away and headed for the stairs. Reaching the foot of the stairs, she turned back to their group. 

“You've spent so long trying to track down Uroboros. Well here, enjoy.” Excella taunted, mockingly sweeping a hand in the direction of the restrained man. 

Watching Excella hurry up the stairs, the group returned their gaze to the man in the chair as he started to jerk sporadically. The gray skinned man stood up, yanking his arms free from the restraints as if they were made out of paper instead of steel. A low rasp escaped the man and he lifted his head to glare at them. He began to step towards them and as he did, tentacles began to burst from his back and chest. Then the tentacles retracted back into the man as he continued to come closer to Chris and Matt. 

The man's progression towards them faltered and the mutation began again, tentacles ripping out of his body and enveloping him entirely. 

“Hmm. Too bad.” Excella said as she watched from the balcony, standing beside Wesker. “Looks like he wasn't worthy; Uroboros has rejected him. Only the chosen ones will be worthy for the coming world.”

The man was now completely made of tentacles and he came for them. Chris pulled out his magnum and opened fire on the mutated creature infected with Uroboros. Sylar ran forward and shot electricity at the thing. Wesker watched with intrigue as one of Chris's companions summoned electricity from just his hands. Noah Bennet drew a handgun from a shoulder holster which he'd kept hidden until now, and shot at the monster. After great effort the group managed to bring the creature down and it fell to the floor, evaporating upon impact with the ground as it absorbed into itself. Chris had four bullets left in his handgun, his magnum was empty, and all other weapons were now empty as well. Their group was definitely in trouble. 

Excella glared down at them, disappointed that they had beaten her monster so quickly.

“As soon as you are all through with your vigilante mission, you should leave. There's nothing here worth throwing your lives away for.”

With that said, she walked away from Wesker and out of sight. Wesker started down the right staircase, clapping his hands slowly together. 

“Nicely done, Chris. Course, you were one of my men.” 

Chris glared at Wesker. “Will you let that go?! I haven't been under your command for ten years.”

Wesker tilted his head, studying Chris as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Perhaps not under my command but certainly under my control. Look how you came here, like a rat in a maze. You are hopelessly lost, Chris. If you could only open your eyes and accept my new world...”

“That's never going to happen, Wesker!”

This outburst returned the smile to Wesker's lips. “You haven't changed, Chris. I admire that. Unfortunately I tire of your interference.” 

The smile left his face as he continued to walk closer to Chris, his demeanor menacing and dangerous. He was definitely posed to attack at any moment. Matt tried to get into Wesker's head, staring hard at the black-clad man. Wesker paused in his tracks and stared back at Matt before smirking.

“Your mind control won't work on me. Besides, I want to kill him,” the man said bluntly.

Then Wesker was moving, his form now merely a black blur of motion. Chris raised his gun only to be in time to have it knocked from his grasp. Wesker grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him before kicking Chris in the back, which sent the younger man to the ground. Sylar raised his hand but Wesker was behind him and he sent Sylar against the wall before he was moving again. Mohinder tried to attack him with his enhanced strength, landing a punch against Wesker's face, but it did little and the enemy threw his fist into the science man's face. 

“Things are actually getting interesting, eh Chris?” Wesker commented as Mohinder fell.

He turned to engage Chris once again as the BSAA agent attacked. Chris rammed into Wesker, trying to bring the taller man down. Wesker slid back maybe a foot or so before he stopped moving. He was far too powerful for Chris and he found the agent's attempts to fight him amusing. He rammed a knee into Chris's stomach twice before throwing him to the ground. Chris rolled across the floor with a loud grunt of pain. Danko and David attacked Wesker together. Danko fell to the ground, the result of a well placed kick, and David was shot in the head by a bullet from a gun Wesker took out with astonishing speed.

“David!” Chris yelled in shocked horror. 

Noah retrieved Chris's fallen gun, turning to shoot Wesker but found the gun smacked from his hand. The tyrant picked Noah up by the throat and squeezed. Bennet struggled against the man's grip and Claire ran at the black-clad man with fear for her father's safety. 

“Leave him alone!” Claire shouted and shoved hard at the older man.

Caught by surprise, the sunglasses were knocked from his face and Wesker released Bennet, who coughed for air. Claire ran to her father to make sure he was okay. Their opponent made an audible sound of annoyance and lifted his eyes to glare at Claire and her father. Claire gasped when she saw his eyes. They were red-yellow and the red was practically glowing in the rather dark room. Wesker stepped towards them but then Sylar was shooting electricity at him. He flipped backwards several times and then fired a bullet into Sylar's head. Sylar fell to the ground as Matt once again tried to get into his opponent's head. Peter and Nathan looked on helplessly. They wanted to help but what could they do? Wesker could feel Matt trying to get inside his mind and he appeared in front of the ex-cop. 

“I told you that won't work. Get out of my head!” Wesker shouted in fury. 

He was clearly aggravated now and he aggressively backhanded Matt across the face. Matt stumbled backwards, holding his face in pain as Wesker turned his attention on Sylar who was speaking to him.

“You're going to have to do better than a bullet to my head.” Sylar informed him smugly. 

Wesker simply stared, no emotion. “Certainly you could not survive a severed head, hm?”

Sylar glared, daring him to try. 

“Wesker!” Chris shouted, distracting the tyrant.

He knelt on one knee to get a better shot and started shooting his last bullets at his enemy, who weaved and dodged the bullets, appearing on the left side of the room, then closer to Chris but on the right. Chris felt his gun click empty as he missed Wesker for the fourth time and suddenly the man was in front of him with his handgun pointed in Chris's face. He lifted his head in surprise at Wesker's sudden appearance in front of him, before his face transformed into a glare of defiance and hatred. The heroes looked on in horror as they were helpless to do anything in time to save him. 

“Time to die, Chris.” Wesker said to his nemesis.


	10. Diplomatic Approach

Chapter 9

\--Diplomatic Approach--

 

Chris waited for his death to finally come and claim him but it never happened. Instead a young woman approached the two at a run and slammed her boot into the side of Wesker's head, sending him away from him. A hand reached down to help him to his feet and he found himself face to face with his partner. 

“Sheva!” he exclaimed in grateful surprise.

“Looks like I got here just in time, partner.” Sheva said to him with a smile.

The two turned to face Wesker, who was glaring at the BSAA agents with deadly force. Realizing she needed to tell Chris something, she looked back at him.

“Chris, I have a way that may stop him but someone needs to restrain him.”

Sylar was attacking Wesker now and the tyrant moved swiftly around the room, avoiding the electricity shooting from the other man's hands. Meanwhile Chris was still listening to Sheva's plan.

“So this is what Wesker needs to remain stable?” he asked, staring at the syringe in his open palm.

“Right, the only chance we have is to cause him to go into overdrive. It should act as a poison to him according to the documents I found.” Sheva explained. 

Chris enclosed the syringe in his hand and nodded to Sheva. “Okay then, I'll hold him and you inject him with this.”

He handed the syringe back to Sheva and hurried over to the others to inform them of Sheva's plan. Chris had barely finished explaining the idea when Sylar flew backwards and hit the ground hard. Wesker front-flipped forward and landed neatly on his feet. His attention was now turned on Peter and Nathan, who suddenly were flying through the room, landing on the balcony. 

“Interesting...” Wesker murmured. 

Claire tossed her body against him again and with great annoyance he threw her off. She fell to the ground, the breath knocked out of her as Matt shouted for Wesker to look at him. Wesker started to turn towards Matt but then Chris was wrapping his arms around him from behind. The tyrant growled in annoyance as the younger man attempted to pin Wesker's arms to his sides. 

Chris was losing his grip fast against the other man's incredible strength but a moment was all they had needed. Sheva ran forward and plunged the syringe into Wesker's chest, injecting the fluid. Once the liquid was injected, Chris released him and went to stand next to Sheva to see if it worked. Nathan and Peter flew back over to the others and the rest of the heroes gathered, once again a group.

Injected with the extra dose, Wesker staggered back as he grunted in pain. He fell forward onto his knees and bent over in pain. The tyrant ripped the syringe out of his chest.

“Did it work?” Sheva asked, watching Wesker.

“I think so.” Chris said, not sounding as sure as he wanted to be.

Wesker got to his feet but it was clear the virus was definitely messing with him as he stumbled. The black-clad man clutched his head and started screaming in agony. The noise was inhuman and horrible, sounding more like a wounded animal than a man as he fell back onto his knees from the pain. He lifted his head to glare furiously at them and since he wore no sunglasses, they could see his glowing red irises as he practically snarled at the group. Chris stood in front of him and watched the taller man warily. 

“What have you done?!” came a girl's voice that Chris recognized as belonging to Eva. 

He glanced up and there she was, standing on the balcony. Without bothering to take the stairs, she vaulted over the railing and landed on the floor below. Eva ran to Wesker and knelt in front of the man. Placing her hands on either side of his face, she stared into his eyes with frightened worry. 

“Are you okay? What's wrong?” she asked him, her tone one of deep concern for his well being. 

“Eva? What are you doing? You know Wesker?!” Chris asked her, his eyes wide in confused shock.

Breathing heavily, Wesker moved his eyes from Eva to Chris and then back to Eva.

“So Chris and his friends have been the ones you keep running off to see...” Wesker said to her. 

“Eva, what's going on? How do you know him?” Chris demanded, starting to get angry.

Wesker brushed Eva's hands away from him and struggled to his feet. 

“Let's finish this,” he said to Chris.

“Don't be stupid.” Eva said.

When he tried to take a step forward she placed a hand on his chest gently. “Don't.”

Surprisingly, Wesker paused and stared down at the girl with green eyes.

“This is what you wish?” he asked her.

“It is.” Eva replied. 

She turned her eyes to Chris, who was staring at her along with the others.

“Eva, how do you know Wesker?” Chris asked her again.

Eva didn't seem too happy about the situation. She hadn't wanted it to come out like this.

“Because he's my dad.”

“Better close that mouth before I put my boot in it, Chris.” Wesker snapped, referring to the BSAA soldier's gawking stare as he looked at the two of them.

“Wesker, you have a daughter?!” Chris exclaimed incredulously. 

“Is it really so hard to believe, Chris? I was human once upon a time.” 

It all dawned on Chris then. “That's why I thought I recognized you! You answered your phone just like he does and you never show your emotions just like him! Heck you even dress the same and make similar expressions when you talk. I can't believe I didn't realize sooner! I knew I had heard some of your comments before. That's because I heard Wesker say the same things!”

“Congratulations, Chris. I'm glad you have half a brain.” Wesker retorted bitterly. 

He tried to take a step but ended up stopping immediately, wincing in pain as he clutched his side.

“Dad!” 

Eva wrapped her arms around him and Wesker leaned heavily on her. She turned her gaze to Chris, tears threatening to emerge from her usually calm demeanor.

“What have I told you about calling me that?” Wesker muttered, sounding irritated.

She ignored him and instead checked him over worriedly. “What did you do to him?” 

“They just gave me another dose, Eva. I'll be fine once my body adjusts to it.” Wesker informed her.

“But those doses are supposed to be precise! Are you sure your body will be able to adjust? What if it doesn't? Dad, maybe-” 

Wesker chuckled, causing Eva to stop talking. He smiled at her and it was the first time Chris had seen the man smile without the menace attached to it in a very long time. 

“Don't worry about me. I can't die that easily.”

He wiped away a tear that had started to trail down her cheek. Embarrassed to be crying in front of him, she wiped the tears from her eyes and regained her usual calm composure. 

“Good. Cause you remember your promise, right?” Eva asked him.

Wesker shook his head. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

She stared long and hard at him and then a smile broke out across her face. 

“You jerk!” she said with a laugh and playfully punched his stomach, being careful so that it barely touched him. “Don't pretend!”

A smile crept across Wesker's face. “Of course I won't forget. I did promise, didn't I?”

“Yep.” Eva said, still smiling. 

Chris was stunned speechless. He could see the obvious affection and love these two held for each other and he couldn't believe it. Wesker was a monster and incapable of love. It was what he had convinced himself of over the years to make it easier for him to hunt the man. He had always told himself that Wesker's humanity was gone and only a hollowed shell of the man he had once known was left. But here before him now, all those beliefs meant nothing because he could see human emotions in Wesker's eyes right there and then. And hadn't Wesker said he was saving the world through Uroboros? Perhaps the man really did believe he was somehow doing the right thing through his actions. It just didn't seem feasible. Chris began to get frustrated at being constantly confused about what was going on around this strange place. 

“Eva, why didn't you tell us Wesker was your dad?! You lied to us about your name!” Chris accused.

Eva's smile faded and she looked back at Chris calmly. “I told you my name was Eva Jane. You didn't ask whether Jane was my middle or last name.”

Chris grumbled to himself about how that wasn't the point and then seemed to remember why they were all there. Retrieving Wesker's gun, he pointed it at the man.

“Now where's Uroboros? I won't let you kill billions just so you can have your so called perfect world.”

Sheva followed her partner's lead, also aiming her weapon at Wesker. Eva protectively moved to stand in front of her dad, arms spread out as if to block them from him. 

“No! You're supposed to help him!”

Chris and the others with him weren't the only ones gaping at her in stunned puzzlement. 

At Eva's words, Wesker raised an eyebrow at her inquisitively. “Beg your pardon?” 

Eva ignored her father, focusing on Chris. “Wesker is only doing this because he doesn't think he has any other choice. He thinks he's a monster and so he has to act like one but he really isn't! He's sweet and kind... He's a good man.”

Chris stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “Good? He's a monster! Wesker kills without remorse! He's trying to spread a virus that will murder billions of innocent people!”

“The experimental virus changed him. His sensitivity has decreased exponentially, which causes him to have trouble distinguishing between what is morally acceptable and what isn't. The virus made him that way.” Eva explained to them.

“Simply ridiculous.” Wesker interceded. “Do not defend the unspeakable actions I have committed. I was fully aware of the choices I made and I do not regret them.”

“See!” she exclaimed. “The fact that he knows they were unspeakable acts proves he still retains his humanity despite the virus!”

“Eva...” Wesker began.

Eva continued to defend her father regardless of his reluctance for her to do so. “Wesker may have done terrible things but he also did good things. He destroyed Umbrella's research data which was the key to destroying that evil corporation and exposed himself to testify against them.”

“Umbrella's erased data..that was you...” Chris uttered out loud. 

He was genuinely shocked by this revelation and wasn't sure how to feel any more. Without the data being destroyed, Umbrella never would have fallen so quickly. 

“And can any of you tell me that you've never done anything bad? Huh?” Eva continued.

Chris held up a hand for her to stop. “Look, what are you getting at?”

“Help him. Tell him to stop his plans for spreading Uroboros across the globe.”

The BSAA agent gawked at her as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Yeah, if only it were that easy!” 

Wesker bent to retrieve his sunglasses from the floor and put them back on. He turned and fixed his gaze onto Chris with a very calm and collected disposition. 

“Well now, Chris. Why don't you try a diplomatic approach? It couldn't hurt.”

Chris searched Wesker's face, trying to see what the man was thinking, but it was impossible. Even without the sunglasses, that man had always been a difficult person to read. 

“Wesker, I don't want to play your games.” Chris informed the older man, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. 

Red eyes flashed from behind Wesker's dark shades as his eyes bore into Chris's own brown ones.

“Just ask, Redfield.” 

The use of his last name caught Chris's attention. Hesitantly, he blinked at Wesker and lowered the gun slightly.

“Okay... I would certainly appreciate you not slaughtering billions so you can continue walking about like the pompous asshole you are.”

A disapproving growl sounded audibly from Wesker. “Without the sarcasm, Chris.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Could you not spread Uroboros around the world, thereby infecting and killing innocent people?”

Wesker and Chris stared at each other and after a very long moment, the tyrant spoke. “Very well.”

Chris nearly choked on his own surprised reaction. “What?!”

Before he could react, Wesker had closed the distance between them. He pulled the BSAA agent closer so that he could lean down and whisper in his ear. “I do this for Eva, not you. Understand?” 

His nemesis released Chris's shirt and he stared at the tyrant. “Uh, yeah..I..guess?”

Wesker smiled. “Good boy.”

The hateful glare returned to Chris's face. “But there's nothing you say that I can believe. I can't trust you.” 

Chris wanted it to be clear that he didn't fully believe Wesker was just going to up and change. Why would the tyrant do such a thing? For his daughter? He didn't know the full extent of their relationship but he didn't trust Wesker to be one capable of unconditional love, even for his own daughter. 

The taller man tilted his head to the side slightly, placing a hand to his chest where the needle had stabbed him with slight discomfort. 

“No...” Wesker said. “You cannot.”

This comment did the complete opposite of calming his nerves. Though the next words out of the tyrant's mouth were definitely closer to settling him.

“The crates over by the door you came in contain ammo. You should find any kind of ammunition you need for the guns you have, in there,” he told them. 

Sheva went to investigate, along with Noah and Danko who also had guns, while Chris stayed where he was to keep an eye on Wesker in case he tried anything. He overheard Sheva asking the others about the powers she had seen them display but he returned his attention back to Wesker when the other man spoke to him.

“My gun?” Wesker asked, extending a gloved hand outward.

Chris hesitated but handed the gun over anyways. If Wesker really wanted to kill him, he had no doubts that Wesker could take the gun away at any moment and shoot him. The BSAA agent wanted to believe he could hold his own in a fight with Wesker but when said opponent had superhuman abilities, it kind of ruined any hope of that ever happening. Upon receiving his gun, Wesker holstered it and inclined his head towards his daughter when she started to speak, visibly listening.

“Now Chris, before I tried to tell you. My father, er... I mean Wesker, thinks he saw old friends of yours.”


	11. Unforeseen Danger

Chapter 10

-Unforeseen Danger-

Eva had already gone back to her expressionless and businesslike demeanor. Standing next to Wesker, the two really did seem identical. Both wore black clothing, betrayed no emotions, and spoke in the same knowledgeable and assured way that was very distinguishable. The only real difference between the way they talked was Wesker's British accent, and his habit of extending every word he said as if he were savoring it. He spoke that way now.

"I did not think I saw, I did see them." Wesker corrected his daughter, sounding a bit irritated.

He peered at Chris. "You remember the Ashfords don't you, Chris? Ten years ago but still..hard to forget such a loving family."

It was easy to detect the sarcastic tone in his voice at that last sentence and Chris grimaced as he remembered them. They had been one of the families who founded Umbrella and they had been just as crazy as the others.

"Impossible since you claimed to have defeated her, hm?" Wesker asked.

Chris knew exactly who her referred to.

"I did kill her! I watched her blow up into a million pieces and that's besides the fact that the entire place self-destructed moments later!" Chris declared.

A thought struck him. "Wait, you said them."

"Yes, her brother was with her." Wesker told him.

"What is going on?!" he demanded. "I know Alfred Ashford is dead without a doubt! I saw his body myself and the amount of blood around it... There's no way you saw him."

"Fine, Chris. Maybe I saw a different pair of blue eyed, blonde haired twins wandering around."

The agent started to snap back at Wesker, tired of the older man always implying that he was an idiot. But he didn't get the chance to when Sheva interrupted. She hadn't noticed the conversation between the three of them and she strode over, smiling at Chris.

"He was telling the truth!" Sheva exclaimed. "There's even ammo for the magnum you're carrying, Chris!"

Chris felt some relief in the fact that they had some way of defending themselves again, but it didn't sit right with him that the help had come from Wesker. The tyrant claimed he was going to drop his plans for creating a new world for Eva. But could he really just change his mind after trying to achieve this goal for what had probably been a good portion of his time? He wanted to believe he had his captain back. The captain who had been something of an idol to him and who he had often looked to for guidance. A question began to nag at his mind though and it broke him from his thoughts concerning the man on his mind.

"Hey Sheva, where did you run off to before?"

She came over to him, handing him several clips for his handgun and a dozen rounds for his magnum which he promptly secured to his belt as he waited for her reply.

"What do you mean?" she asked him as she knelt down to pack some of the ammunition into her backpack.

"Before, when we ran into you. In the courtyard, remember?"

Sheva stared at him blankly.

"You told us to follow you here!" Chris's voice rose as he tried to understand why she wasn't comprehending.

The others were looking at Sheva now as well.

"We saw you," Peter told her, confirming Chris's story. "And you led us here before disappearing."

"What are you talking about?" Sheva asked them with enormous confusion. "I only just ran into you, here, when I saved you from Wesker's gun!"

Chris began to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. The feeling he got when there was an unseen danger nearby. Something that he just couldn't wrap his mind around or understand fully. He removed his eyes from Sheva, taking the time to scan the area around him with a slight frown. His eyes paused on Wesker's head. There was a red dot resting just above the blonde man's ear and Chris quickly formulated what that dot meant.

"Wesker, move!" Chris shouted.

When the tyrant chose to turn his head to look at him speculatively, Chris sprang forward to shove him out of the way. Startled by the BSAA agent's sudden actions, Wesker was unguarded enough to be knocked off his feet when Chris rammed into his midsection. The two went sprawling to the floor just as a sharp ting echoed up from where a bullet pierced the metallic floor. The laser moved to Sylar's head and shot him straight through the forehead. Sylar dropped soundlessly to the floor, a surprised look frozen on his face.

Immediate chaos ensued as the heroes tried to figure out where the shots were coming from. As soon as the first bullet was fired, Eva dropped to one knee and began to search the room for possible sniper positions. Noah grabbed Claire's hand to lead her somewhere for cover but she collapsed onto the floor when two bullets hit her in the back.

"Claire!" Bennet shouted in horror and he tried to help her but Peter quickly grabbed him by the arm.

"She'll heal, you won't. Come on!" Peter reasoned with Bennet and the two ran for shelter behind boxes stacked to the left of the doors.

Matt, Nathan, and Mohinder were already there and Danko soon joined them. Danko was clutching his left arm, his hand covered in blood.

"Barely got me," he said in response to their glances.

The six men hid behind the boxes and Bennet perched himself on the end. He searched for the source of the shooting, his handgun out and at the ready. Sheva stood with her back against the wall and gun out but she didn't want to alert the shooter by moving so she stayed still. Chris and Wesker were standing out in the open, avoiding the red light as it tried to track them down. Wesker wasn't using his speed and it was clear the overdose of the virus was still affecting him. Eva still remained in her crouched position and hadn't moved from the spot as she tried to determine the location of the sniper.

The shooter seemed too preoccupied with trying to take down Wesker and Chris, which Eva used to her advantage. Another shot rang out, missing Chris by mere centimeters as he threw himself to the ground.

Eva smiled. "Gotcha."

She took off running towards the balcony.

Bennet had also found the source and he aimed his handgun toward the balcony and fired. The shot most likely missed its target but a surprised squeal escaped the lips of the sniper and he jumped up, temporarily exposing himself. A man dressed in an old fashioned red royalty outfit jumped into view of the others. He had blonde hair combed back and a sniper rifle in his hands.

"Hey you!" Eva yelled up to him as she leaped onto the railing and literally ran across it to where he stood.

The man in red swung the rifle around to shoot at her but she got to him first and a booted foot smashed into his hands. The gun dropped from his grasp and she followed that with a thrust kick to his face. With a whimper he stumbled away from her and ran for it. Eva gave chase and Sheva followed after her, calling for Chris to follow. Chris first went to help their fallen but already, Sylar was standing and seemed as though he had never gotten shot. Bennet ran over to his daughter as she was getting to her feet. The back of her shirt was bloodstained but she insisted it had healed.

"Interesting friends, Chris. Where did you find them?" Wesker asked.

"Don't you think that discussion can wait? Sheva and your daughter just went running after a psycho who by all rights should be dead."

The others had come from their hiding spot and Chris spotted Danko's gunshot wound on his arm. Danko had made a makeshift tourniquet with a piece of his undershirt which was already stained through with his blood.

"You alright?" Chris asked him.

Danko affirmed that was indeed the case and he sighed to himself as Wesker started talking to him again.

"I don't know how it's possible for him to be running around either but at least he is a lesser Ashford. Eva and your partner will have nothing to worry about with him."

Chris checked to make sure the safety was off of his gun before glancing at Wesker.

"Alfred's not the one I'm worried about. If Alfred is here, then so is his sister. How do you think Eva will do in a fight against Alexia?"

Chris knew it was a bit harsh to make Wesker think his daughter could be dead or in serious danger right now by throwing it in his face like that but at the moment he couldn't care less. His partner had also just run off and she could be in serious trouble as well. Besides, it wasn't like Wesker was deserving of any favors.

Wesker's features darkened and he nodded to Chris. "I'm going after Eva."

Without waiting for a reply, the man turned and strode meaningfully for the stairs. Rolling his eyes, Chris glanced at the others before hurrying to catch up, the others trailing behind them.

"Yeah yeah, we're coming too."


	12. Return of the Ashfords

Chapter 11

-Return of the Ashfords-

When they went through the doors at the top of the stairs, Chris knew exactly where they were. It had been ten years, but he could never forget a place such as the Ashford manor. The building had been designed to look similar to the Trevor mansion and it really did appear a lot like the mansion which had once been located near the Arklay mountains.

"Ashford manor..." Chris said in awe. "We're in Antarctica?"

"Unlikely." Wesker input. "Someone brought this mansion to us."

"How could anyone bring a building somewhere?" Nathan asked with a frown.

"They can't. It's not possible." Bennet dictated firmly.

Wesker eyed the man. "Do you have a better explanation for our current predicament?"

"No. But it's just not plausible for a person to be capable of moving buildings."

"The last few years I have learned a lot of things are possible." Mohinder said to Noah Bennet. "I learned there were people who could heal themselves, people who could fly..."

"It's not the same." Bennet argued.

"You guys said you didn't know how you came to be in the Trevor mansion, right?" Chris asked them.

The heroes looked at Chris with slightly piqued interest.

"That's right." Noah confirmed.

"So it's possible whomever is making these places appear could be the one who brought all of you to the mansion." Chris pondered.

Noah seemed reluctant to accept such a thing but he accepted it nonetheless. "It's possible I suppose."

"But how?" Mohinder questioned. "More importantly, perhaps, why?"

"Come back here you big sissy!" Eva's voice bellowed.

The group standing in the foyer turned as one towards the source of the yell. The sniper in the red dress jacket from earlier came running through the double doors on their right. The man in the red suit, Alfred, ran right past them and up the stairs. Eva and Sheva came bursting through the doors seconds later. Sheva halted to stand beside Chris when she saw them but Eva headed for the steps. She came to an abrupt stop herself when Alfred stopped running once he reached the top of the staircase. Instead of running anymore, he turned around to face the group and sneered cockily down at Eva.

"Now you're going to pay for hitting me!" Alfred declared.

Eva narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh yeah? Then stop running and come fight me."

"Hahahahahahaha," came the cold laugh of a female. "Do not be so eager to die."

A woman dressed in a long purple dress, wearing white gloves halfway up her arms, came into view. She had obvious beauty which was slightly marred by her cold blue eyes that looked down at them from the balcony. The woman's blonde hair fell down her back and was the exact color as her brother's.

"Alexia!" Chris exclaimed. He ran forward to stand by Eva and drew his gun.

The blonde haired woman peered down at him, her fingers subconsciously stroking a red brooch that she wore around her neck. Her icy gaze examined him for a moment before a wicked smile drew across her lips.

"Ah, the other sibling. You and your sister destroyed my plans for this world. I will destroy you."

Following her promise, she motioned to Alfred. "Fetch the Redfield girl."

Alfred nodded and ran off to do her bidding, disappearing behind a wooden door on the right.

Chris's eyes widened in alarm at Alexia's words. "What are you talking about?!"

He didn't have long to wait. Alfred returned, dragging a woman with him by the arm. The woman appeared to be in her late 20's with reddish brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and blue eyes. She wore tight blue jeans, a long sleeve pink shirt, and a white jean jacket over her shirt. Upon entering the room, she spotted her brother amongst the group gathered at the bottom of the stairs.

"Chris!" she yelled and attempted to run to him.

Alfred yanked her back by the ponytail and she cried out in pain. He dragged her over to stand by Alexia, holding onto her by the arm and hair. Chris stared up at his sister in horror and fear.

"Claire! Don't you touch her!" Chris seethed, glaring at the twins.

"Taking hostages, Alexia? My, how you've lowered yourself. I thought the Ashford family prided itself on honor. Do you consider this honorable?" Wesker ridiculed as he came to stand beside his daughter and Chris.

Alexia shifted her gaze to Wesker and a sly smile crossed her lips. "You again... Peculiar to see you standing beside a Redfield. Perhaps it is you who has lost their way..."

They stared at each other, each with their own manipulative smiles on their faces. He no longer visibly showed his current weakened condition from the extra dose of serum, but Alexia could see it with her inhuman senses.

"Perhaps you are forced to side with such weak creatures because you yourself are too powerless. I told you before when you came for my virus, you are not worthy of its power." Alexia informed Wesker shrewdly.

"Your research on the T-Veronica virus proved to be primarily useless so don't get too prideful, Alexia." Wesker retorted briskly.

Alexia's eyes narrowed and she lowered her hand from her expensive looking brooch. Her already cold eyes seemed to turn to ice as she stared daggers at the tyrant.

"I came for the elder Redfield sibling, but perhaps I shall first remove you from this earth. Witness the power of the T-Veronica virus. I remember the last time you saw it, you fled. You will not escape this time."

With those words, Alexia began to descend the staircase and Chris felt like it was total deja vu. The transformation was happening exactly as it did ten years ago when he first saw it happen. The woman came down the stairs and as she did, her body became engulfed in bright flames. Her clothes burned away, the clasp of her brooch breaking and falling onto the steps. But even as her pale white skin was exposed, it hardened and became stone. Her blonde hair blew behind her and froze as it turned to the same rocky texture as the rest of her body. Her blue eyes began to glow with a fiery power and they became a sickly yellow-gold color. Strange veins of some sort began to spread from her hair to her arm. Around her back they wrapped so that her entire right arm and her left hip and leg were covered in them.

She now resembled the very monster that she was inside. How poetic. Chris thought bitterly to himself. He had already dealt with this bitch once and it hadn't exactly been a picnic. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he had a choice in this. Alexia was dangerously close to reaching the bottom of the stairs and though she was coming to kill Wesker, once he was dead she would most certainly come after the rest of them. Alexia desired for all of humanity to become her slaves. You couldn't get much crazier than that.

"You guys know her?" Bennet asked, glancing sideways at Chris and then Wesker. "What do you think? Can we beat her?"

Noah had his gun out and ready to use but he seemed quite nervous after the transformation he had just witnessed. Chris took his magnum out and pointed it at Alexia.

"Yeah I know her and as for what I think..." Chris fired three magnum rounds into Alexia's face.

Alexia appeared vaguely annoyed by the bullets, but other than that she was unhurt by the powerful rounds.

"Claire! Run!" Chris called out to his sister.

Claire did run. Elbowing Alfred in the face, she took off for the stairs. Hearing Alfred cry out in surprised pain, Alexia slowly turned her attention onto Claire.

"The rest of you get out of here!" Chris ordered and turned back to Alexia who was advancing towards his sister.

Chris hesitated to fire since his sister was so close and then Wesker was running past him in a blur. The tyrant smashed a fist against Alexia's face and the woman simply turned and waved an arm in his direction. Blood spurted from her wrist, onto the floor, and the blood self-combusted into fire within seconds. Wesker flipped away to avoid the flames and Eva sprang into action. The girl was definitely acrobatic. She dove to avoid flames and then jumped onto the railing, running up it and then leaping off, attacking Alexia with a twisting kick. The girl wasn't even using a weapon as she fought the powerful woman. Chris wanted to take this time to retrieve his sister but he was forced to fling himself away from the stairs when fire nearly erupted beneath his feet. Lifting his head, he saw his sister standing by the doorway waiting for him.

"Chris, come on!" she shouted.

He scrambled quickly to his feet and yelled for Wesker and Eva to retreat as well before he disappeared through the doors they had come through. When they left the manor, they stood in a stone courtyard different from the one in Trevor's mansion. This was the actual courtyard which Chris remembered from his time in the Antarctic. Wesker came running out the doors with Eva slung over his back. The blonde haired girl was kicking and hitting at the tyrant to break free.

"Let go! I can beat her! Let me kick that bitch's ass!" Eva shrieked.

Wesker stopped running when he reached the others who had gathered near the large reflecting pool in the courtyard and put the enraged girl on her feet. As soon as she was free from her father, she ran for the manor's doors again. But when she tried to open them, they didn't budge. They had locked for some reason.

"Shit!" Eva cussed and kicked the door angrily.

Anger was definitely one of the more difficult emotions to contain they supposed.

She grumpily made her way over to the group and plopped cross-legged onto the ground beside Nathan and Peter. Crossing her arms firmly, she chanced a glare at Wesker.

"If you hadn't interfered I could have killed her," she promptly told the man.

Wesker gave her a very serious look. "I don't want you to ever have to kill anyone."

Eva got quiet when he said that and after a long moment of silence, her calm composure was once again intact.

"I'm sorry. I was being reckless," she apologized. "You taught me better than that."

Wesker merely nodded and then turned his gaze to Chris. "If you don't mind I propose we rest."

He was taken aback by the fact the older man was asking him if it was okay to suggest something. He stared at Wesker in surprised wonder and the other man rolled his eyes, though it was impossible for anyone to see since he wore his dark shades.

"Are you going to get like this every time I say something, Chris?"

"Sorry just not used to you asking for, well, anything." Chris stammered.

The other man regarded Chris for a moment. Apparently he chose not to say anything because after a minute, he went and sat on the edge of the reflecting pool beside Chris's sister and Sylar. Sylar seemed to be trying to wipe the blood off of his forehead from when he had been shot in the head by Alfred. Noah was making sure his daughter Claire was really okay after all they had gone through, and everyone else was either sitting or standing around.

They were all probably trying to wrap their heads around everything that had happened because that was certainly what Chris was trying to do. He was trying to make sense of this mess they seemed hopelessly trapped in. Remembering his sister was a new arrival to the group, he figured he had better explain what was going on. Chris was actually fairly surprised Claire wasn't in his face trying to get answers. She was always very protective of her big brother, just like he was with her and wanted to know what was going on at all times. He shrugged it off, owing it to the shock of being Alexia's captive.

"Claire, I suppose introductions are in order. This is Sheva Alomar, my new partner from the BSAA's West African branch..." Chris started.

"Africa?" Danko asked, mildly puzzled.

Chris realized he had never actually told the group where he had been before stumbling upon that mansion.

"Yeah, our Delta and Alpha teams had been deployed in Africa to search for Uroboros. That's where Sheva and I were when the mansion I found you in appeared on the map."

"Whoa, from Africa to Colorado to the Antarctic. This is getting weird." Claire Bennet commented.

"I don't know what's going on but I just have this bad feeling." Nathan told them, frowning up at the night sky above them.

"Yeah, me too." Peter said. "Somebody's messing with us."

"For now we should forget about the why and just focus on surviving." Chris told them.

"But if we can't figure out who or what is doing this, we may never get out of here." Sheva lamented.

Chris knew she was probably right but he didn't want to think about that right now. He was just glad his sister was okay and safely with them.

"So anyway, Claire, introductions. This young woman over here is Claire too, and with her is her father... Noah right?"

Noah nodded affirmation with a polite smile. Chris continued on.

"Sylar, Peter... Nathan, yeah that's it. Um, I wanna say Matt? Yeah? And Mohinder. Oh yeah and can't forget Danko over there fuming to himself about how he's stuck here with us."

This elicited a chuckle from a few members of the group and Claire smiled at everyone in turn.

"It's nice to meet everyone," she said. "Sorry it couldn't be under better circumstances."

Murmurs of agreement all around.

"And we're working with Wesker and his daughter Eva for the time being."

Claire looked at Chris blankly for a moment as if registering what he said. Then she nodded and glanced at the man sitting next to her. "Okay."

"Okay?" Chris uttered, shocked by her lack of reaction.

Even Wesker raised his eyes to peer over his sunglasses at the younger Redfield.

Claire shrugged. "Yeah. I'm okay with working together."

Staring at his sister for a long moment, he shifted his eyes to Wesker and then back at her. Chris was suspicious now and he was getting a very bad feeling.

"Well good because we're doing it as a favor for mom. She just couldn't stand me and Wesker fighting all the time. You know mom." Chris said to his sister.

"Yeah, okay." Claire replied calmly.

Immediately Wesker got to his feet and Chris pulled his gun on her. Claire's eyes widened at the sight of the gun and she got to her own feet, her hands up in surrender. Everyone else looked as shocked and confused as Claire did.

"Whoa, Chris! What gives?!" Her face portrayed genuine surprise and confusion.

But Chris knew it was all a lie and he finally understood that he was face to face with whomever or whatever was messing with them.

"What gives? You're not Claire!" Chris yelled at her.

"Of course I am. Look at me, it's Claire." She stared at him innocently.

He glared at her. "I told you our mom asked us to do a favor and you said okay."

"Yeah..."

"Our parents have been dead for over fifteen years! They died in a car crash! The real Claire would know that!" Chris exclaimed.

Slowly the Claire look-alike's innocent stare melted away and she smiled at him.

"Darn. Well there just wasn't enough time for me to absorb all of her information yet. It always starts with the most recent on back or the more important things. Very unlucky for me that you asked a question from the past. You're good. Wasn't so good when I was running around as your female friend there."

The Claire look-alike pointed at Sheva and something clicked in Chris's mind. "You were the one who led us into Excella and Wesker's trap!"

The malicious smile widened and Chris didn't like it. His sister never smiled that way so it bothered him to see this thing doing that.

"Where's Claire?! Was she ever really here?" he demanded.

"Oh yes. Probably still in the hands of the Ashfords since you left her behind," the Claire look-alike informed him, almost accusatory sounding. "Since you abandoned your own flesh and blood."

Chris clenched his fists in anger. "I thought you were her! I never would have left her if you hadn't tricked me!"

He tightened his grip on the gun and his finger flexed on the trigger. The Claire look-alike observed this and started calmly strolling back and forth among them.

"Hey, don't move!" Chris yelled at her and she merely laughed.

"What are you going to do? Shoot your own sister?"

"You aren't Claire!" he shouted.

The Claire look-alike ignored him and turned on Sylar. "Oh my... Now you're a fun one. So many deaths and zero guilt. You're my kind of guy."

Sylar stared at her in confusion. "Excuse me?"

His confusion turned to shock when suddenly the Claire look-alike transformed into a young girl with very light blonde hair and blue eyes. She couldn't have been much older than Claire Bennet and she stared sadly at Sylar.

"How could you kill me, Sylar? I think I might have loved you... How could you kill me like that?"

The girl was Elle Bishop. A girl who had indeed been murdered at the hands of Sylar so that he could acquire her electricity ability.

"You aren't her." Sylar said simply. "Elle's dead."

The Elle look-alike cackled. "I know, Gabriel."

She extended the pronunciation on the name, making sure he caught the use of his real name.

"You killed her. Killed her just like all the others you murdered. And you don't even feel bad, do you? You just keep on killing without thinking about how these people have friends and family... Simply admirable I must say."

Then the Elle look-alike shifted her eyes to Peter and a smile grew across her face. "Do you know what your sin is, Peter?"

She was transforming again and now she was a man with longer brown hair and brown eyes. He had a few days growth on his face and he wore a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans. The heroes all recognized him as the late Isaac Mendez.

"Didn't you ever hear of the rule, never date your friend's ex?" the Isaac look-alike asked Peter, tauntingly. "It was your love for her that got her killed, Peter. Her blood is on your hands because you were selfish."

Peter winced but kept his sturdy stance as he faced this thing. "You're not Isaac cause he's dead too. Who the hell are you?"

"A shape-shifter of some kind?" Noah pondered to Danko.

The Isaac look-alike sneered at the two men as if insulted. "I am no mere shape-shifter!"

He was changing again and now he was Chris, decked out in the entire uniform. "I am not even human. I am so much more than that."

"Ugh, don't be me when you say that asshole." Chris complained, aiming his weapon at..well, himself.

The Chris look-alike chuckled. "You want to know what I am? I am Sin. You pathetic humans give me life, and the amount of sinning this particular group over here has done has helped me to become quite strong."

"You're...what?" Chris asked uncertainly.

"I am Sin," his look-alike answered, speaking each word slowly so that they could understand what he was saying. "And you have caught my attention, Christopher."

Chris's eyes narrowed at his look-alike using his full name. No one ever called him by his full name. What did this thing mean by calling itself "sin" anyways?

"Sin? Is that your name or something?" Chris asked, trying to understand.

His look-alike scoffed. "Technically I have no name. I am quite literally sin. You know, evil. Every time someone sins I get a little stronger. As you can imagine, I have quite a bit of power."

Chris's look-alike, or rather Sin, smirked at the group as he scanned his eyes around them all. "Did you like my mansion? Getting to see all your friends again, Christopher. Wasn't that nice?"

Chris clenched his teeth tightly, glaring at Sin with growing anger. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through this thing's skull but he couldn't do it. Not when he had no proof that the thing was a threat to them at the moment.

"What do you want?" Chris asked Sin.

He seemed to find this question amusing. "What do I want, Christopher? I want to keep playing my game. You all are playing it so nicely. Lost some friends along the way though, haven't we?"

Sin was changing now, from Chris to a woman. He had transformed into Jill and Chris immediately flared up in rage.

"You son of a bitch! Don't you look like her. Not her!" Chris shouted with great fury.

Sin laughed. But it was Jill's laugh. Something Chris hadn't heard in a long time and it hurt him so much to realize he was never going to hear her laugh again. Not the real Jill anyways. Because she was dead. Chris had failed to save her.

"Shame you let this one go, Christopher. Your partner of ten years and you just let her die like that. And now you're walking around with the man responsible almost like teammates." Sin shook his head in mock disapproval.

Knowing that Sin was referring to him, Wesker took this moment to join the conversation.

"So this game is about Chris, hm?" Wesker asked him and strode up to Chris. "Well then why don't I end it now."

He grabbed the back of his neck, dragging him against himself, and placed his gun to the side of Chris's head. Startled by the sudden attack, Chris's own gun slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.

"Wesker! What the hell?!" he shouted, his anger growing even more.

The other man ignored him as he peered at Sin, waiting to see its reaction. Confused interest registered on Jill's features and Sin shifted its stance a few times before saying anything.

"No fun, no fun. Taking him out of the game so early on ruins all the fun!" Sin pouted, crossing its arms across its chest and tapping a booted foot.

It seemed so odd to see Jill acting like a small child who wasn't getting what they wanted. Chris knew it really wasn't Jill but Sin looked exactly like her, so it was hard not to get a little confused whenever it reacted or said anything in her voice and body.

"Christopher is the heart of this. It's beautiful how pure a soul he has and I want to see it get dirtied. I wonder how much heartache it will take to break you, Christopher." Sin pondered, now speaking directly to him.

Sin backed off, clearly intending to exit the area as it backed towards a door off to the right of where they stood.

"A word of caution for you, Christopher. Everyone in your little group isn't as trustworthy as you might like to think. Someone is lying about their real intentions here. Someone is going to try to kill one of your group and they are going to try to kidnap another. Can you imagine who would do such a thing? I know I can. Find the deceiver and much will be answered for you, Christopher. But do you have the heart to take such betrayal?" After a pause, Sin added, "Again?"

Then he..or it..was gone, pushing through the door and out of the courtyard. As soon as Sin was out of sight, Wesker removed his gun from Chris's head and let him go. Stepping away from Wesker quickly, Chris rubbed the sore spot on the back of his neck and anger flashed across his features.

"What was that all about? You turning on me, again?!"

"That person or thing which calls itself Sin, wasn't going to leave without someone dying unless I did something drastic. Since you seem to be the main event for it, I thought threatening you would work best. And it worked so don't complain." Wesker told Chris nonchalantly.

Chris stared at him in shocked disbelief. His anger quickly returning as it struggled to be greater than his confusion. "You used me!"

Wesker turned his gaze towards him. "When have I not?"

Something snapped in Chris and he ran for Wesker. Seeing what was about to happen, Nathan and Peter quickly interceded and held him back as he struggled to jump the offending man.

"You two can sort out your differences later." Nathan informed the BSAA agent. "Now's not the time for fighting amongst ourselves."

"I'm not so sure about that." Danko piped up.

Chris ceased his efforts to attack Wesker, who had been watching him try with great amusement. Instead, he forced himself to block the man from his mind and focused on Danko. "What do you mean?"

"Assuming Sin is telling the truth, one of us is a traitor. One of us doesn't want the same things we do."

He waved the comment away. "That thing was just messing with us. There are no traitors here. Well except for Wesker but he's going to behave, right?"

Wesker scoffed but said nothing when Eva elbowed him sharply in the side. Sheva glanced around at the others and agreed. "Chris is right. This thing is lying."

Chris scooped up his gun and returned it to his thigh holster. "Alright. We need to figure out what that thing meant by playing games with us. But we can do that while searching for my sister, and a way out of this place. Now I don't..."

He trailed off and he stood staring straight ahead, looking very confused.

"Chris?" Sheva asked him, concerned.

Chris placed a hand to his chest as his face contorted in pain. "My chest this time...nguuh..."

He gasped out before releasing a grunt of pain. He started to cough harshly and he brought up a hand to cover his mouth. He retracted it though, staring at his palm. There were specks of blood which he had clearly just coughed up. He didn't have much time to worry about the blood though, because he was clutching his chest with both hands now and stumbling forward as he continued to emit sounds of pain.

"Aaaughh!" the agent screamed out and then his body went quite still.

The group watched as he collapsed to his knees before falling over onto his back. He fell unconscious almost immediately after. Everyone stared at their unmoving leader and Eva was the first to reach his side. She checked for a pulse, confirming that there was one and that he was breathing steadily.

"What happened to him? What's wrong?" Sheva asked, worriedly.

The young agent came to kneel beside Eva, who shook her head. "I don't know."

"He's been having these fits of really bad headaches before losing consciousness." Peter mentioned. "This is the first time it was his chest though. The first time he coughed up blood too."

"I know what this is." Wesker stated. "Did you see him get injected with anything?"

All eyes moved over to him. Eva frowned at her dad. "No. What is this? What's wrong with him?"

"Las Plagas. What I used to help make the Uroboros virus." Wesker answered, coming over to examine Chris.

The tyrant opened an eye-lid to check the eye color. "His eyes aren't red yet; that's good. But it won't be long now. Coughing blood means the eggs have hatched. It's only a matter of time before the parasites are able to control his mind."

"But there's a cure, right? The President's daughter and that American agent from the report were infected but they got cured somehow. So we can cure Chris too, right?" Eva questioned.

"They used a special laser to destroy the parasites in their bodies. We don't have a laser like that here." Wesker answered her.

"But you'll find a way to save him, right dad?" Eva asked him quietly.

"What did I say about using that name?" the man said to her, ignoring the question.

You'll find a way, right?" she asked again, pressing for an answer.

"For now we should just wait for Chris to wake up," was all Wesker would say.


	13. Test Subject E. Wesker

Chapter 12

-Test Subject E. Wesker-

The group sat in complete silence as they waited for Chris to regain consciousness. It was awkward and uncomfortable for everyone except Wesker, who didn't seem to care one way or the other. The tyrant sat against the wall of the manor, near Chris's feet. Eva had placed Chris's head in her lap and was stroking his hair absentmindedly through her fingers. Wesker was watching his daughter from behind his dark sunglasses as she did this and after nearly a half an hour had gone by, he spoke to her.

"Why do you care so much for him?"

Grateful for someone to break the silence, the others listened in for lack of anything better to do. Eva continued to stare down at Chris's clearly troubled rest as she answered her father. "He's my last hope."

Wesker's expression went from neutral to surprised. "Last hope?"

"Yes. He's the only one who can save you." Eva answered simply.

"There you go again with the 'saving me' bit. What makes you think I need saving?"

"You do need saving. You may not admit it to yourself, but you don't want to be evil. I can see it in your face. You feel burdened by the fact that you've lost your humanity. At first, you thought it would be great because then you could defeat Umbrella and show them the monster they created. But you aren't a monster. When you succeeded in destroying Umbrella you realized that." Eva paused in her answer to look straight at her father. "You saw it in the way you continued to allow certain people to live when it would have been easier to just kill them. But I think...you refuse to admit it to yourself. You see those eyes of yours in the mirror and it's a constant reminder of the things you've done in order to bring justice to the world by crushing Umbrella. You should be proud of those eyes. To me, they symbolize what you sacrificed so the rest of the world could be safe."

Wesker laughed softly. "You think I saved the world? The man you're holding onto so tightly for my saving, thinks I am doing just the opposite. So why would he help you?"

She smiled slightly. "By being here, he's helping plenty. And you don't hate Chris as much as you pretend to."

"Oh?" Wesker asked, clearly amused by her explanation of his actions and the way he was.

"That's right. If you really hated him that much then he would be long dead. He's only human while you are a lot more powerful. You could kill him in a heartbeat if you wanted."

"I have tried to kill him many times. Chris has simply proven to be more resilient than I could have imagined."

Eva shook her head in disagreement. "When you put your gun to his head before, way before, why didn't you pull the trigger?"

Wesker froze. "You witnessed that?"

She nodded. "I was observing from a distance. Answer the question."

They stared at one another for a long moment, the others watching intently now to see what Wesker said in reply. Wesker surprised all of them when he laughed out loud.

"Desideratum." Wesker murmured.

"Desi-what?" Eva questioned, confused.

"Desideratum or necessary. I suppose you could say that is what Chris is to me and what I am to him. We both need each other to keep ourselves going. You see, Chris..is damaged like me."

"What do you mean damaged?" Eva asked him, still not quite understanding.

Wesker merely smiled to himself and was further saved from answering when a groan escaped Chris's lips.

"Is this what it feels like to have your insides ripped out?" Chris muttered miserably.

He sat up and took notice that he had been lying in Eva's lap but said nothing about it. Chris got to his feet with a grunt of effort and a hand held against his chest. After a moment, he lowered his hand from his chest after seemingly deciding that most of the pain had receded. Wesker also moved to a standing position and the rest of the group took this as a lead for them to stand as well. The BSAA agent turned his eyes to Wesker, determining that he wouldn't be collapsing again anytime soon.

"How much time?" he asked the black-clad man.

"A few hours." Wesker answered bluntly.

Eva examined Chris's calm expression curiously. "You know what's wrong with you?"

He met her gaze and nodded. "I figured it out when my chest felt like it was on fire. It's just how Las Plagas was described to affect the infected host in the Kennedy report."

She continued to study his face and seemed very puzzled about his serene attitude towards the knowledge that he was going to become a mindless being in a matter of hours.

"Aren't you afraid?" she asked him quietly. "We're going to have to shoot you if you change. I would be scared if those parasites were inside my body. I don't want to die and I know you don't either. How can you be so calm and relaxed?"

Chris looked her straight in the eyes when he answered her. "I'm far from relaxed, Eva. My sister is out there in the hands of an insane woman and the rest of us are all trapped in this place, forced to play Sin's game. But it's not the end of the world if I die. Besides, I got people waiting for me. Friends, family… They'll be expecting me. I knew the risks and the odds when I chose to join the BSAA. It was only a matter of time until I got killed, one way or another. That was inevitable. But for the amount of damage I've done, I'd say it was all worth it."

Eva turned her green eyes away from him and scuffed the cement with her black boot. "I wish I were that brave."

He looked earnestly at her. "Are you joking? You're the calmest one here. You're the one giving me the strength to keep moving, Eva."

Her cheeks flushed a light pink tinge. Blushing profusely, she kept her eyes lowered to the ground. "You're just saying that..."

"I'm not," he told her, placing a hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

After a moment, the man returned his attention to Wesker.

"Door number three?" he asked, extending a hand towards a red door on his right.

There were only three doors in the area in the first place. One which Sin had left through and one which led to the Ashford manor that was now mysteriously locked. This left the third and final door for their group to venture through and Wesker took the lead. The door took them into a hallway with a single door straight ahead. Passing through the second door, the group found themselves in a room with decaying walls and floors. To the left and right of the doorway were round cages of some kind. There were tables with scattered papers and books and Mohinder wandered over to them to take a look. Directly in front of the door on the other side of the room, there was a set of crumbling stone steps and a balcony with a door on the left. That was the door they would be taking it seemed.

Chris walked a bit further into the room with Sheva and Bennet, surveying their surroundings for anything of interest. Eva followed Wesker as he strolled over to one of the cages and examined it, searching for some sign as to what had once been contained within it. The others stood around by the door they had come through, unsure of what to do. Apparently bored with the cage, Eva made her way back over to the rest of the group and stood around with them. Her fingers constantly fingered her holstered gun out of habit as she tried to keep still. Claire watched her as she did this and finally decided to try talking to her. She went to stand beside the green-eyed girl and tried to make conversation.

"So Wesker's your dad, huh?" Claire asked, for lack of anything better to say.

Eva was watching Chris and Sheva converse with each other in the center of the room in low voices and didn't even bother to look at Claire when she replied. "Yeah."

"You definitely take after him." Claire said next.

"Is that so?" Eva asked, still watching the BSAA agents talking quietly with one another.

"Well you guys dress the same and act similar. Not only that, the blood relations is really obvious when you look at the two of you standing together. You guys have the same hair and general facial features and everything. I wonder where you got your green eyes from though. They're a very pretty color. I've never seen eyes so green before."

"You don't resemble your dad," was all Eva said, giving a brief nod towards Bennet, who was searching one of the desks near Mohinder.

Claire nodded in agreement. "Yeah but that's probably because we're not blood related."

Eva glanced sideways at the other blonde haired girl. "Oh?"

"Yeah, he adopted me when I was a baby. Actually, Nathan's my real dad." Claire told her, pointing a finger briefly at the older Petrelli man who was standing next to his brother near the door.

"Sounds like a story." Eva said to Claire, her voice returning to its disinterested tone that she tended to speak with.

Seeing that her attempts at socializing with Eva weren't having much success, she chose a different subject other than family.

"So you have a crush on Chris."

"Yeah-wait, what?" Eva stammered, glancing away from Chris quickly as her face reddened.

"Oh, you must be joking." Wesker stated loudly.

Claire and Eva turned to find Wesker staring at the two of them with astonishment written all over his face. He crossed his arms over his chest and tightened his stance. "A Redfield, Eva? Really?"

Claire placed her hands on her hips. "She can like who she wants to."

"Wha-I don't, huh?" Eva stuttered. Suddenly unable to form a sentence, she fell silent.

"Chris is far too old for you anyways, Eva. He's 35 and even-" Wesker started but he was soon interrupted by Claire.

"I don't care how old he is. I think he's cute." Claire promptly told him.

The expression on Wesker's face when Claire described Chris as cute was priceless, and out of nowhere Eva started to laugh. Claire and Wesker stared at her because Eva just didn't seem to be one to laugh much. The BSAA agents were glancing over at her now, wondering what had caused her to go off. Sheva turned from the laughing girl with a conflicted look in her eyes and she moved away from Chris to venture over to one of the cages. Eva forced herself to stop laughing and Claire nudged her in the ribs with an elbow.

"He's looking over here," she whispered to Eva.

Upon noticing Chris's curious glance in her direction, her face immediately started to redden again and she avoided her father's piercing gaze as she blushed. Eva knew she was being silly but she just couldn't help it. Thankfully something came up which pulled Wesker's attention off of her.

"Your name's Wesker?" Mohinder asked loudly from where he had picked up a few sheets of paper from the desk he was currently scouring. "I think these memos concern you."

With everyone's attention now fixed upon him, he read the information he had found.

"Memo 1, 1993. R-Virus (Regenerative virus) injected into new test subject E. Wesker at 14 months of age. Change in eye color from blue to green observed. Former Umbrella employee J. Wesker attempted to prevent our retrieval of test subject and was terminated at 1700 hours. Unfortunately, Umbrella employee A. Wesker arrived home early and witnessed her termination and team 4 was decimated at his hands. Spencer has told him that team four went rogue to try and kill his family. If any questions are asked, you are to say Spencer had no knowledge of the attack. Though he will be disappointed team 4 failed to retrieve subject, Spencer will at least be pleased we were successful in eliminating J. Wesker as he deemed her a distraction to one of his top employees A. Wesker. It seems A. Wesker is also unaware of subject's injection and this will also please Spencer greatly. Perhaps this will be a lesson to A. Wesker for disagreeing with Spencer's goals to create bio-weapons and for leaving the lab."

Mohinder lowered the sheet of paper, a thoughtful expression on his face. "What was your first name again?"

"Albert." Chris answered for the tyrant.

Chris seemed shocked at what he had just heard Mohinder read, Wesker looked increasingly angry, and Eva was beyond horrified as she stared at Mohinder.

"It says E. Wesker was supposed to be a test subject. If you're the A. Wesker mentioned in here then..." Mohinder trailed off in thought and then it seemed to dawn on him. "Eva is the E. Wesker mentioned in here. She was injected with something as a child!"

Mohinder glanced down at the memo again. "Something called the R-Virus. The 'R' stands for Regenerative. I haven't noticed anything strange or inhuman about Eva though. Regenerative... Do you suppose that allows her to heal like Claire?"

"They infected my daughter..." Wesker grunted, clenching his teeth as he forced himself not to express his anger.

Eva was still staring at Mohinder in shock. "No! I get cuts and bruises like anyone else!"

She pulled up a pant leg to reveal an old scar that was on the back of her lower leg. "See, I got that scar when I was riding my bike as a kid. There's nothing wrong with me! I'm not infected!"

Increasingly confused and frustrated, she turned on Wesker. "Umbrella infected me! Did you know about this?!"

"I didn't know," he informed her.

His fists were clenched very tightly and his anger was clearly visible to everyone. "I didn't know Spencer would ever do something like that to a baby. I should have known better. I should have suspected something like this when I found out I was one of Spencer's guinea pigs as a child."

Chris frowned at him. "You were experimented on?"

"Yes, I was one of the Wesker children. The only survivor. I learned about it two years ago from Spencer himself."

Realization flashed in Chris's eyes. "The Spencer estate, Jill and I walked in shortly after you killed him. Spencer told you then, didn't he?"

Wesker nodded, his teeth clenching again. "I would have killed him a lot sooner if I had known he was behind my wife's murder."

Again Chris looked surprised. "You were married, Wesker?"

A bit of anger left Wesker's features and his expression softened as he thought about his wife. "Her name was Jane. I'm sorry I lied, Eva." He turned towards his daughter. "I didn't want you to know about your mother's murder. I didn't want you to grow up with nightmares."

"I didn't know you stopped being a researcher because you didn't agree with their plans for creating weapons..." Chris murmured as he processed everything.

"I became disturbed when Spencer sought to obtain bio-weapons with 100% kill rates. I didn't want to be a part of a project trying to create something like that." Wesker informed him.

"There's another memo." Mohinder pointed out, reaching down to pick up a second sheet of paper.

"Read it." Eva told him. "I want to hear this."

Mohinder nodded and began to read.

"Memo 2, 2004. E. Wesker subject at 12 years of age has yet to contract any illnesses, even a common cold. Whether this is a result of the R-Virus is yet to be determined. Impossible to retrieve subject as former Umbrella employee A. Wesker has continued to monitor subject for protection. Though A. Wesker has dealt a crippling blow to Umbrella corporation, Spencer has assured us that we are far from finished with our work. Will continue to make observations on E. Wesker subject from a distance."

Mohinder placed the sheet of paper back onto the desk. "That's all it says."

"Don't worry. They're not watching you any more, Eva." Chris assured her. "Spencer's dead and Umbrella's finished."

"I know... It's just not knowing I was being watched all those years..." Eva said softly, staring at the floor.

"Umbrella had me under surveillance for a long time too." Chris told Eva, trying to make her feel better. "And I know-unnh..."

"What?" Eva turned to look at him and saw his head was lowered and he was clutching his chest. "Chris are you okay?"

The agent let out a sharp intake of breath, releasing frequent gasps of pain as he struggled to get through the sudden unbearable agony in his chest. Eva came over to him and his breathing became normal again, his shoulders relaxing as he straightened from his hunched position. He stood staring at the floor and Eva reached out a hand to place on his arm, concern filling her eyes. Chris seemed to notice her presence for the first time and he slowly turned towards her, his head still lowered.

"Chris?" Eva asked again.

Without warning, Chris lashed out at her and locked his hands around her throat. Startled, Eva did nothing to defend herself and he began to squeeze more tightly. Staring at Chris in terrified confusion, she saw his eyes were now red. Eva's own eyes bulged as her air supply was suddenly cut off completely and she tried to pull his hands from her neck with little success. Wesker started to move to stop Chris but Eva didn't need any help. She slipped a hand into a knife sheath attached to her belt and stabbed the blade into Chris's upper thigh, before kneeing him in between the legs with such force that he flew backwards.

"Gahh!" Chris shouted in surprised pain and felt himself sail a few feet back until he slammed into one of the cages on the right side of the room.

He fell and tumbled onto his side where he drew in sharp breaths. Relieved that she once again had air, Eva greedily gulped the oxygen into her burning lungs. Chris dragged himself onto his feet again, visibly paler and exhausted from fighting off the parasite inside of him.

"I'm so sorry," he said to Eva once he had partially regained his composure.

She shook her head as she replaced the knife in its case, justifying his actions. "This isn't your fault. You're not yourself."

Chris lifted his hands and stared at them as if he couldn't believe what they had just done. "Yeah... And soon I won't be myself anymore..."

"Don't say that! We'll find a way to cure you!" Claire exclaimed from where she stood near her father, Bennet.

Chris didn't seem to believe her words though and he continued staring at his hands.

"Figures I'd run into you again, Albert," a thickly accented voice spoke loudly.

The group turned as one to see none other than Excella standing at the top of the stairs. She had come through the door on the balcony and entering behind her was a man wearing a heavy purple robe. He had some sort of gold emblem on the front of his robe, a symbol of some sort, and carried a wooden staff which appeared to be alive. The staff twisted with vine-like limbs around itself and the man held it close as he looked down upon all of them. He had brown hair combed back, faded gray eyes, and a very gaunt and pale complexion.

"Saddler." Wesker stated as he stared at the robed man.

Hearing his name said in such a way, the man smirked. "Not as dead as you surely presumed."

The man's tone was very smug and Excella stood beside him with a satisfied smile of her own. She came down the steps and stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching them.

"When I saw you prancing around with your new friends, I decided to make a new alliance. One that I could be assured wouldn't fail me unlike you, Albert. Uroboros was our creation and you just abandoned it like it meant nothing."

"It means nothing, Excella."

Excella scoffed. "What, because your daughter disapproves? I thought you were above human weaknesses, Albert. It seems I was wrong. Doesn't matter. Saddler and I are going to carry out his plans of spreading Las Plagas across the globe. With it, he will have total control of everyone and the world will be a much greater place."

"Do you really believe that, Excella? His world will turn everyone into mindless beings. He'll do the same to you!" Chris declared.

"I don't think so," she told him snidely and turned her adoring gaze onto Saddler as the man began to speak.

"I can feel them growing ever so strongly inside you." Saddler commented, turning his gaze to Chris.

Chris looked up at the man in bewilderment. The man stared at him as he lifted up his left hand and held it towards Chris, palm outwards. Immediately Chris let out a tortured scream and he clawed at his chest as the parasite inside him fought for control. He dropped onto his knees and continued to struggle in pain as grunts constantly escaped his lips. A smile crossed Saddler's mouth.

"Perhaps you can resist. But you cannot disobey." Saddler informed him in his Spanish accented voice.

Chris went very still after Saddler said this and he slowly stood up. Straightening, he lifted his eyes to look at Saddler and the others could see that they had turned a red color. Satisfied he had achieved victory over his victim, he beckoned him to come forwards.

"Now, come to me Chris."

"No... Chris!" Sheva uttered in horror.

He didn't seem to hear her as he obediently walked to Saddler and stood beside him. He stood next to the robed man with a very detached, emotionless demeanor. Saddler noted the gun in his thigh holster and a smile spread across his face as an idea formed.

"Take your gun and shoot her with it." Saddler commanded, pointing a finger at Excella.

"What?!" Excella gasped in astonishment at the betrayal. "Saddler, you promised!"

"I'm sorry dear, but you simply aren't one of us. You are an outsider who doesn't belong. Shoot her," he stated coldly.

Chris reached numbly to his holster and withdrew the gun. He pointed it at Excella, who was growing increasingly frightened, and he pulled the trigger. The bullet pierced her chest and with a cry of pain, the proud woman crumpled to the floor in a pool of blood and moved no more. Chris showed absolutely no emotion or reaction when he did this and simply looked to Saddler for further direction. Pleased, Saddler gladly gave him further instructions.

"Let's see... Kill the blonde girl right there. She reminds me of the President's daughter, my previous failure." He spoke that last part bitterly but it had all come out clear. Saddler wanted his new puppet to kill Eva.

Chris moved the gun to point at her and pulled the trigger without hesitation. Instead of Eva, the bullet hit Claire as she shoved the frozen girl out of the way. Eva rolled Claire off of herself, staring down at the motionless girl that laid beside her. She knew that Claire would heal, but seeing her like that was still horrible.

"Oh well, she would have been next to die anyway. Go ahead, shoot her." Saddler ordered.

Eva stared at Chris, her eyes wide with fear and grief that he was doing such things. "Chris, no. Please stop."

He stared blankly at her for a moment and then aimed the weapon at her. Wesker quickly moved to stand in front of his daughter and his eyes pierced Chris's own. "Chris, this isn't you. Wake up."

Chris stared at Wesker, nothing registering on his face. But then his outstretched hand which was gripping the gun began to tremble. A sharp intake of breath came from Chris as he clenched his teeth, struggling against Saddler's control.

"I said shoot her!" Saddler yelled.

"No!" Chris shouted and dropped the gun.

He collapsed onto the floor, writhing in pain as he struggled against the parasite inside of him. Saddler made an annoyed grunt but wasted no time in quickly exiting the room. Sheva knelt down beside Chris who was still writhing on the floor, tears forming in her eyes.

"Oh God... We have to help him," she said desperately.

Chris suddenly latched his hands around her throat and she let out a gasp of surprise. But then he released her as he once again regained control of himself. The control was only momentary though and he once again began to claw at his chest in pain.

"Hold him down!" Wesker shouted the order, walking over to them.

Sheva backed off as Bennet and Nathan fought to hold him to the floor as they gripped his arms. Peter grabbed hold of his legs when one of them nearly knocked him off his feet and tried to keep them as still as he could. A strange inhuman hiss escaped Chris as Wesker knelt by his side but the tyrant ignored it. Instead, his eyes were watching Chris's chest. Without warning, he reached down and ripped Chris's shirt apart.

"What the hell is that?!" Peter asked in horrified disgust as he saw a lump moving beneath Chris's skin.

"The parasite." Wesker replied as he traced a hand along Chris's chest, following the parasite's movements.

When the lump drew closer to the heart, Wesker put pressure on the spot and it retreated farther to the right. Chris struggled even harder against the parasite's control as Wesker forced it to move towards his arm. For a brief moment when he was himself, his eyes still red, he yelled for Wesker to just kill him but his request was ignored and then the tyrant got what he needed. As soon as the lump moved into Chris's left shoulder, Wesker wasted no time in suddenly brandishing a knife and digging it into the flesh of the shoulder. Chris howled in pain as he drew a small but deep cut and then proceeded to reach in with his fingers, to yank out a hideous bug looking creature. The tyrant dropped the parasite to the ground and crushed it beneath his boot. Already the red was fading from Chris's eyes and the brown color returned. His breathing slowing, he quickly fainted from sheer exhaustion. But before he did, his eyes sought out Wesker.

"I always knew you'd be the one to stab me, Wesker." Chris said, laughing weakly to himself before his eyes closed.


	14. Reality Realized

Chapter 13

-Reality Realized-

Eva peered worriedly down at the sleeping brunette. "Is he going to be okay?"

"The parasite's gone and the cut is superficial." Wesker assured her.

Claire had come over after reviving and she smiled with relief. Sheva appeared similarly relieved and she removed her backpack. "It's a good thing he gave me some spare clothes of his to carry along."

Sheva provided the supplies while Mohinder set to work cleaning the wound and taping a patch over it. They removed what was left of his old shirt and decided to wait for Chris to wake up so he could put his own shirt on. Eva sat down beside Chris's still form to watch over him as he slept, but that was as far as she got before a sniveling voice interrupted their recent moment of calm.

"Ooh what a tragedy! Is the eldest Redfield sibling dead?" came the eerily feminine voice that could only belong to one man.

"No, he's not dead. Ruin your day?" Eva asked Alfred as she sprang to her feet defensively.

Alfred Ashford merely let out a creepy laugh. "On the contrary, Alexia would much rather bear witness to his demise."

"Chris!" a worried voice shouted.

The owner of the voice was a woman who had been standing in the doorway which Alfred had just entered through, and she came into the room for the first time. It was Chris's sister Claire. Alfred pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it at her, a cruel smile playing out across his face.

"There you are! Alexia and I were oh so concerned when you disappeared," he informed her. "You're just in time to die with the others."

Wesker stared at the deranged twin with amusement. "You're going to kill all of us by yourself? I fail to see the advantage you have over us."

"All by myself? No. The sweepers will be more than helpful in dispatching the rest of you." Alfred revealed as he swept a hand vaguely in front of him.

It only took them a moment to see what he was referring to. Without making a sound, six hunters had entered through the open door the group had entered from. These hunters looked slightly different from the previous ones they had encountered in the mansion because these creatures' slimy skin gave off a purple hue and were apparently called sweepers.

"Not cool." Eva muttered, taking in the sight of the half dozen deadly monsters.

"Do not fear." Wesker said to her. "Take care of Ashford."

Eva didn't question him and nodded to show she understood. The rest of the group were eyeing the sweepers alertly and Sylar appeared to be just itching to attack before the bio-weapons did. Eva started edging to the right side of the room and one of the sweepers began to follow her movements with its beady eyes. But when it started to shift towards her, the sweeper immediately stopped its motion when Wesker stared the creature in the eyes. The others watched in astonishment as one by one, the sweepers turned and exited the room the way they had come without incident.

"What the-come back here! Kill them!" Alfred shrieked in angry disbelief.

Meanwhile Eva continued to edge closer to Alfred on the right side of the room without drawing his attention. Alfred's eyes were focused on Wesker as he revealed why his monsters had abandoned the other.

"I control the hunters, remember?" Wesker smiled smugly. "I thought you were supposed to be gifted. Forgetting something as important as that..." He shook his head in mock sympathy.

Alfred took notice of Eva as she vaulted the railing and landed on the balcony to his left. Without a trace of emotion on her face, she ducked as he trained his weapon onto her and struck him in the shin with a swift kick.

"Mistake," Eva told Alfred as he tried to turn his gun towards her again.

The girl kneed him in the face and he collapsed onto the floor of the balcony, blood spewing from his nose. After kicking the gun from his hand she added, "Yours."

Wesker beamed proudly up at her. "Well done, Eva."

She turned to Wesker and a slight smile crossed over her lips but it didn't last long when Chris's sister shouted a warning. "Look out!"

Completely unprepared for him to have a taser in his pocket, Eva cried out in shocked pain as it was jabbed into her leg. Electricity coursed through her entire body and it only stopped when Claire jumped Alfred and grappled for the taser. Alfred was surprisingly strong and he threw an elbow back into Claire's face, causing her to fall off of him. Eva was bent over, face twisted in pain as she tried to recover from the attack. She glanced up to find Alfred heading for Chris's sister who was stumbling back to get away from the blonde man and his taser. With a cry of fury, Eva slammed herself into Alfred and the two went tumbling over the railing. They both fell the few feet and hit the ground hard.

A pained gasp escaped Eva and she clutched her left arm tightly to herself. Alfred shook himself from his dazed state and tried to grab at Eva. Wesker seemed to have had enough when he heard his daughter in pain and he strode over to Alfred, reached down, and snapped his neck in one swift motion. Ignoring the dead man, he turned to his daughter and helped her onto her feet.

"I think my arm's broken," she told him, holding her left arm to herself.

Wesker examined the arm and rectified her diagnosis. "Possibly, or a near break." Searching the ground, he picked up Chris's ruined shirt and made it into a makeshift sling for her arm. "This will have to do for now."

Eva nodded and her attention went to Claire, who was descending the stairs with Alfred's gun held loosely by her side in her hand. She handled the pain her arm must have been in astonishingly well.

"Thanks." Chris's sister said gratefully to the girl with bright green eyes, giving her a weak smile.

Eva watched Claire as she noticed her brother's sleeping form and hurried over to him. She placed a hand over the wound gently and then brought a hand to her brother's face. "Oh, Chris..."

At that moment a groan escaped Chris's lips and his eyes opened to reveal brown iris' filled with tired confusion. A happy smile broke out across Claire's face and she punched him in the uninjured shoulder lightly.

"Don't scare me like that! You're not supposed to get hurt, understood?" she demanded of him, her tone playful.

"Ow..." Chris complained, bringing a hand to the spot where she had hit him. "Sheesh, sis. Aren't you supposed to go easy on the injured guy?"

Before Claire could get a reply in, Chris seemed to realize who he was talking to and he sat up as he looked at her in surprise. "Claire! You're okay! Wait, where's Alexia? Or Alfred?"

"Whoa, take it easy. I'm not sure where Alexia is. I managed to get away from them in the mansion when you guys distracted her. And Alfred is dead-" Claire answered but was cut off.

"Dead and disappearing... Am I losing my mind or do you guys see that too?" Chris asked them, staring at the spot where Alfred's body laid sprawled out.

Sure enough, Alfred's body was disappearing. Claire gasped in surprise as the gun in her hand vanished into thin air as well. Soon the blonde twin's body was gone and not a trace of him ever being there could be seen.

"Well that doesn't happen a whole lot." Chris commented, getting to his feet.

Noticing the clean shirt Sheva had placed out for him, he grabbed it up and quickly put it on. "So... Was he an illusion or something like that?" Chris suggested.

"Couldn't have been. He attacked me and Claire." Eva shared with him.

They all stared at the spot, where Alfred's body had once been, in complete puzzlement.

"Then maybe that wasn't really Alfred." Claire theorized, squinting as she thought hard. "Steve shot him good back on Rockfort Island ten years ago. He was only human and I doubt he could have survived wounds like those. Besides, you said you saw his body too."

"Yeah and he was definitely dead. Unless Alexia created a way to bring her brother back to life, he was definitely a dead Alfred." Chris concluded.

"Maybe it was Sin." Sylar offered.

All eyes shifted over to him. Sylar stood near the doorway and seemed undaunted by all of the attention now focused on him, waiting for an explanation. He straightened his stance and looked at Chris as he spoke, seeing as he was the unofficial leader of their group.

"Well this Sin guy was telling the truth when he told us the mansion and all these other places were put here by him. He was also telling the truth when he claimed to be actual Sin. I know this because I have an ability that allows me to know when someone is telling the truth. So if this guy is really powered by people's sins and can become anyone dead or alive, and learn everything about these people when he transforms into them... It wouldn't take much for him to learn about our biggest fears." Sylar explained.

"Are you suggesting I am not real?" a Spanish accented voice questioned.

Saddler was once again standing on the small balcony at the top of the stairs. He looked down upon them with great contempt and he zeroed in on Chris.

"Pity you failed to embrace such a wondrous gift. The power you could have wielded would have been marvelous to behold." Saddler told him.

"Yeah, at the cost of free will. I'm not giving that up anytime soon." Chris retorted.

As always, Saddler seemed to find something amusing. "The naivety of outsiders is beyond me. Perhaps I must simply show you the error of your ways..."

"You're not real." Eva informed Saddler as she stood firmly before the robed man. "You got killed by Leon Kennedy so there's no way you're here now."

Saddler raised an eyebrow as he shifted his gaze to her. "And yet here I stand before you. Next time the American agent should make sure to do his job better."

Claire narrowed her eyes at Saddler. "Leon makes sure he gets the job done. If he fought and killed you, then you're dead."

"Such faith in him. You should use that faith towards something more beneficial." Saddler told her. "My religious community is currently lacking in members. You would do well to join and embrace the power Las Plagas has to offer."

Claire crossed her arms. "I don't think so."

"There isn't much sense in her joining a man who is dead." Wesker added.

"Yeah, cause you don't exist." Eva reminded the purple robed man.

Chris seemed to catch on to what they were working to accomplish and joined in. "Saddler, you're not real. It's impossible for you to be here just as it was impossible for Alfred Ashford to be here. He disappeared when he died because he was never really here to begin with. So you know what I think?"

Saddler still appeared quite amused by all of their musings. "Please, do tell."

"I think you should disappear."

Saddler's amusement vanished at those words. "Silence. I will hear no more of this."

"You heard him, Saddler! You don't exist! Scram!" Claire called out to him.

Now the religious man was shifting his stance with great discomfort. "Be quiet."

His order went unheard as Eva began to repeat that he wasn't real over and over. The entire group was staring at him now and their looks were all ones of disbelief in his existence. He began to feel hollowed out inside and suddenly his right hand was empty for his staff had disappeared.

"No..." he uttered, refusing to believe they were right.

But his entire body was beginning to feel extremely light, and lifting his now free right hand, Saddler found he could see clear through it. Lifting his eyes to look at the others one last time, he muttered, "No..."

Then Saddler completely vanished before their eyes and Claire audibly released the breath she had been holding in her lungs.

"Phew, I'm glad that actually worked. I have faith in Leon but I've seen things come back to life before."

Chris glanced sideways at Wesker, who was standing slightly behind him and to the left, and thought about all the times he had believed the tyrant to be dead only to have him show up again.

"Yeah, funny how that happens sometimes."


	15. The Ambition of Sin

Chapter 14

-The Ambition of Sin-

They waited a few minutes after Saddler disappeared to make sure he was going to stay gone. While they waited, Eva explained her theory that Sin was making these old enemies of theirs appear to mess with them.

"It worked." Claire admitted. "I mean... They were so real. They could touch and even hurt us."

The younger Redfield looked over at Eva's badly hurt arm when she said this and sighed with frustration.

"Too bad we didn't figure it out before I broke my arm." Eva said.

"I still don't understand how I got infected with Las Plagas though." Chris pondered. "I don't remember getting injected at all."

"When one is unconscious, they tend to be fairly unaware of most things. You continued to slumber quite steadily, even after I injected the parasite into your neck." Wesker informed him.

Chris glanced at the Wesker still standing slightly behind and to his left, near one of the cages. Then spun around fully towards the door they had all entered through when they had first found this room. Standing by the door was a second Wesker who looked exactly like the actual one standing near Chris. The newly arrived Wesker was the one who had spoken and this time Chris and the others weren't fooled. They knew this was Sin.

"You injected me?!" he exclaimed in anger.

"Correct," the Wesker look-alike said to him. "The majini had knocked you out for only a few minutes but while your team was busy fending off the hoards, I slipped right by their defenses and infected you."

He seemed proud of this accomplishment and he smiled at Chris. It was Wesker's smile and this only caused Chris to become even further infuriated. "What for?!"

Sin shrugged his black-clad shoulders, the smile leaving his face as he answered in earnest. "To have a little fun at your expense. It was rather amusing watching your team wonder if they would need to take your life or not. The fear in them was palpable and very exciting. You didn't disappoint, Christopher. You fought the parasite with all your strength, refusing to give in to the urge to kill your friends. Very impressive I must say."

"You sick freak!" Claire yelled at him.

"I'm sin in the very flesh, my dear. What were you expecting? For me to do good? A laughable concept."

Claire fumed silently as she stared at the Wesker look-alike with barely restrained anger. Chris was not able to restrain himself as such. He gave in to his temper and walked straight up to Sin. He drew his weapon and pointed the handgun right between Sin's eyes. Or at least it would have been if he hadn't been wearing sunglasses since he was currently masquerading as the blonde haired tyrant, who never seemed to be without the dark shades.

Sin waited patiently for Chris to do something more, and when he didn't, disappointment crept across his features.

"Go on then. Pull the trigger. It should be easy when I wear the face of a man you loath."

Chris's jaw tightened and he clenched the gun, his finger lightly pressing against the trigger but not even close to what it would take to actually fire the weapon. Sin didn't seem at all surprised.

"You can't do it, can you? Men like you need a reason to kill." Sin determined critically.

"I have plenty of reasons." Chris snarled, angry at his inability to shoot the man, or whatever he was.

Sin had infected him with a dangerous parasite, brought them all to the mansion where his BSAA teammates had been killed off one by one, and had recreated enemies who wanted to kill them. He was the very definition of someone Chris wanted to shoot, especially when his face was Wesker's own. But he also knew he couldn't do it and Sin saw right through his tough exterior.

"And yet you still fail to act." Sin pointed out. "Do you know what your sin is, Christopher?"

He lowered his weapon, knowing he wasn't going to use it. "No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

Sin ignored the contempt in which Chris thickly coated the words with and continued. "You lie to yourself until you believe whatever you need to get the job done. Take my good friend Albert here..."

"I'm no friend of yours." Wesker stated firmly.

Sin pretended not to have heard the other man but did alter his next words slightly. "Take Albert here... You've convinced yourself that Albert is no different than the other monsters you've had to eliminate. And you tell yourself that he's just someone, or rather, something that needs to be put down. But even as you tell yourself this, you know it to be untrue. You have seen his humanity reveal itself again and again. Even you couldn't have failed to notice how he lets you live at each encounter. Or how he took so long with his plans of world domination and somehow even allowed a leak so that a certain organization known as the BSAA would come investigating... He made it so painstakingly obvious that he was waiting for you to stop him, Christopher. Even Albert isn't enough of a bastard to allow the entire world to suffer..."

"Enough talk," the true Wesker interceded.

"Hmm, not in such a good mood to chat are we? No surprise there." Sin derived. "Then we'll get right down to business. Though business is always pleasure for me."

"Get to the point." Wesker said harshly.

"There is no point. I want you to die. All of you. And die you shall. None of you will make it out of here alive because my next trick, is a real...killer." He chuckled at his own cleverness as he started backing away from Chris.

Sin quickly departed the way he had come, out the door. Chris started to run after him but soon stopped in his tracks. Sin had been in Wesker's form and apparently could move as fast as the tyrant when he was.

"What do you think he meant by that?" Nathan asked, looking over at the area Sin had just vacated.

"I don't know but I doubt it will take us long to find out." Chris replied, turning back to face the others.

Chris immediately regretted his words when the room around them began to bend and warp. The group looked around themselves in alarm as the very walls of the room began to extend and morph. The musty concrete floor upon which they stood became marble floors and in the very center, red carpet. Stairs began to add to the small pair of steps directly in front of them and each step also became covered in the red carpet. The old metal banisters were replaced with sleek wooden ones and the walls continued to push back, making the room larger. With the group watching in amazement, they soon found the room had changed into the foyer of the Ashford manor which was where they had first run into Alexia and Chris's sister.

Heavy foot steps resounded throughout the room and a tall broad shouldered man came stomping out from behind the staircase. Calling this thing a man was perhaps too kind. It wore black pants, a black overcoat, black boots, and black gloves but the exposed head and neck was another story. Its skin was a pasty white color and the skin around its lips was gone, exposing muscle and teeth, making it appear to be grinning constantly. Skin had been sewn crudely over its right eye with large stitches so that it only had sight with its one beady left eye. To put it simply, the thing was ghastly to behold. But it also presented danger, for there was a rocket launcher mounted on its left arm. The thing resembling a man walked out from behind the stairs and paused when it reached Claire Bennet, who happened to be standing nearest to the left by the stairs and to the creature. It stared at her as if trying to comprehend something and Claire stared back nervously. She glanced towards the others, her face slightly twisted in disgust at the creature's hideous appearance.

"What is that...thing?" she asked no one in particular.

Wesker was the one to answer her and it was really no surprise to them. He had been a researcher for Umbrella at one point so he tended to be rather knowledgeable in these sorts of matters.

"That is a modified version of the original Tyrant model. Umbrella infected it with a parasitic organism of some kind designed to increase intelligence. Before being deployed they are first programmed with instructions."

"So basically it's just like the tyrant we fought from the mansion lab, right?" Chris questioned.

"Not exactly. This one is capable of simple thought processes unlike the other and can even make decisions. They named it Nemesis." Wesker informed Chris, a hint of approval in his voice.

"Nemesis?! Isn't that the monster that stalked Jill in Raccoon City and killed Brad?" Chris demanded.

"Correct. Nemesis would have been a success too, but of course Umbrella wasn't satisfied enough. They needed something better, more deadly."

Claire glanced at the thing and then at Wesker. "So...what is it doing?"

"It's assessing your threat level. As long as no one draws their weapons it should leave us alone." Wesker told them, eyeing Bennet who had been reaching for his handgun.

Getting the hint, Bennet withdrew his hand and kept it at his side. Nemesis was turning away from Claire now, disinterested. The creature took a few steps and then paused, rotating in Chris's direction.

"Sstaarrss..." Nemesis said, the word nearly masked by the growl emitted along with it.

Chris's eyes widened as the creature locked onto his form. Wesker raised any eyebrow as he seemed to realize his mistake.

"It seems this is the exact Nemesis from Raccoon City." Wesker said slowly as he put the thought together. "Which means the tyrant is also programmed to kill all enemies of Umbrella, specifically STARS members."

"Not a STARS member any more... Good Nemesis..." Chris said to the creature, hopelessly trying to keep the thing from attacking.

Nemesis merely repeated its previous sentence.

"Sstaaarrrsss..."


	16. Departed Enemies

Chapter 15

-Departed Enemies-

Chris's eyes nearly popped out of his head when the creature hoisted the rocket launcher onto its shoulder and took aim at him. "Oh shit!"

The agent dove to the side, landing on the stairs as a shell from the launcher smashed into one of the columns supporting the second floor landing. Marble exploded into millions of fragments and several large chunks collapsed onto the floor below, on the right side of the staircase. The entire right landing of the second floor was completely destroyed. Chris pulled himself to his feet and already Nemesis was shifting, searching to find its target. It began to bring the rocket up onto its shoulder again but suddenly the rocket launcher was no longer in its grasp. Momentarily confused, it stood there blankly. The creature obviously couldn't fathom the idea of someone being able to take the weapon from it with powers of telekinesis.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Claire's voice yelled out in refusal to belief her eyes.

Claire Redfield was staring behind her at the double doors leading into the foyer. What she was actually looking at wasn't the doors though, but what had come through them. A bald man with a dark, gaunt face, wearing a black coat, boots, and gloves was standing in front of the doors. He was completely void of expression and he stood soundlessly by the doors, surveying the room. When his eyes passed over Claire, they stayed there and she stared back at him in muted horror.

"Looks like Mr. X came crawling out of Raccoon City too!" she declared, starting to sound more irritated. She had dealt with this monster of Umbrella's before and she could do it again.

Danko quickly drew his gun on the strangely silent man and Sheva did the same since she was standing near the younger Redfield at the moment. Matt was across from Claire also right by the doors and he looked up at the broad shouldered man incredulously.

"That's one tall man." Matt commented as he stared.

Claire shook her head rapidly, wishing very much that she had a gun even though it wouldn't do much against this thing. "That isn't a man. That's a tyrant."

Danko and Matt met each others' puzzled gazes before both of them looked at Claire. The blue-eyed girl noted their confusion. "Trust me, if that coat comes off, he is one ugly freak."

"So you've encountered him before?" Sheva questioned, still watching Mr. X cautiously.

"Yeah, and he is tough to kill. We're gonna need something like..." She trailed off when she caught sight of Nemesis' rocket launcher lying against the far wall.

Claire never got the chance to do much more than look though because Mr. X was moving. The large man rammed his shoulder into her body with all its might and Claire went flying back into the opposite wall with a resounding crash. Sliding down the wall, she crumpled to the marble floor and lied still. Immediately Danko and Sheva opened fire on the black coated man.

Mr. X turned slowly around to face them and suddenly broke into another run, dashing towards the pair of shooters. When they saw their bullets were doing nothing to halt his progress towards them, they quickly jumped out of the way in opposite directions. Matt's eyes grew round and big when Mr. X brought his dash to an abrupt halt, right in front of him. The mind reader barely had time to register the larger being's presence before a thick arm slammed into his chest, throwing him against the doors. His head hit one of the wood doors with an audible smack and he sank limply to the floor. Sheva and Danko began to shoot at Mr. X again and the tyrant slowly started to turn to face them without so much as wincing at the numerous bullets hammering its body. Sheva and Danko glanced at each other. This was going to be a lot harder than they would have liked it to be.

Meanwhile, Nathan and Peter were keeping Nemesis occupied. Bennet had brought out his gun which had caused the giant tyrant to immediately turn its attention onto him as he was now a threat. Realizing he had just put himself in over his head, Bennet had backed away from the creature as it began a slow lumber towards him. It was then Chris shot it a few times with his magnum which only produced the result of returning the tyrant's attention back to him. Chris's eyes sought out the Nemesis' discarded rocket launcher knowing it was their only useful weapon against the powerful creature as Nathan and Peter flew up the stairs quite literally. Its beady black eye followed them, waiting to see if they would become a threat. When Nathan launched an end table at Nemesis from where he was hovering on the balcony, the creature roared in anger after it cracked him upside the head. It hadn't done even a fraction of damage but the tyrant didn't seem to enjoy having things flung at its head.

With the flying brothers proving to be a successful distraction to the creature, Chris made his run for the rocket launcher. Only a few feet away he spotted his sister lying unconscious and he also noticed Sheva and Danko were having a tough time against some big guy in a black coat, but he didn't have time to help them. Once Nemesis was destroyed he could turn his attention to this newfound enemy in the black.

Lifting the weapon into his arms, he got down on one knee and aimed. Chris gave a warning shout to the Bennets and Petrellis. Nemesis reached a hand to grab Bennet and Wesker suddenly appeared, taking hold of Bennet's arm and yanking him out of the creature's path. Mohinder helped Claire get out of the way and when everyone was clear, Chris fired. A howl of misery tore from the Nemesis' throat as the missile rammed into his chest and sent him into the already caved in area of the room. A gigantic explosion followed and more chunks of marbled debris rained down on the creature's fallen form. Chris noticed Mohinder and Claire had accidentally got caught in the explosion. Claire was already standing and healing but Mohinder looked down for the count. He cursed under his breath for not waiting longer for them to get clear.

"Chris! I need your help!"

The BSAA soldier's mind cleared of any previous thoughts and his eyes sought out the source of the plea for help and found Sheva. Her and Danko stood against the wall right beside the front doors and the broad shouldered man in the black coat was steadily coming towards them. Right when he seemed about to break into a running attack, the wall to his left exploded in a shower of debris. A particularly large chunk hit the man with such force that he sailed through the air and into the other wall. Only Wesker appeared aware of what had just caused it because he was running towards it now with his incredible speed. A huge vine of some sort burst through the wall and sped at Wesker with just as much speed. Wesker jumped over the vine and dodged a second one that appeared, but then a third burst through the wall and this one managed to spear right through his chest.

"Dad!" Eva shrieked in horror.

The thick vine swung itself, throwing Wesker against the railing which broke upon impact with the tyrant's body. The man laid on the staircase in a pool of growing blood, unmoving, and Eva dashed over to him in tears. The vines were moving again and the group spread out as they each tried to avoid the sweeping attacks. Chris's sister was right by the wall that was breaking apart because of the vines and worried for her safety, he shouted for Nathan or Peter to get her out of harm's way as he himself backed into a more safe location. Nathan and Peter both heard him simultaneously and flew to aide the fallen Redfield.

Danko and Sheva dragged Matt's unconscious body further from the wall where the vines were exploding through but stopped short when something began to move behind them. From under a piece of rubble, Mr. X pushed himself back onto his feet. He no longer resembled a man though. His coat had been lost somewhere in the clash with the rock and now his true form could be seen. Instead of hands he had huge claws, easily a foot or two in length. On the right side of his chest was a huge beating mound of red muscle which was probably his beating heart. Sheva and Danko braced themselves for an attack but instead the tyrant was focused on the gigantic vines currently creating havoc in the manor's foyer. Still eerily silent, it charged at the vines, poised to do damage to it and the vines quickly interceded its plans. All three thick vines turned their attention to the creature and began to pound the tyrant into the floor until there was nothing but a gory mess left behind.

Nathan had retrieved the unconscious Claire from the floor and was flying Chris's sister to safety with Peter beside him when one of the vines suddenly swung in their direction. Quick to protect his older brother, Peter shoved them out of the way and the vine slammed into him instead. Peter fell onto the stairs near Wesker and Eva with a groan of pain. He clutched his ankle with one hand knowing he had at least fractured something. Sheva and Danko were firing at the vines, desperate to do some kind of damage. Bennet did the same, brandishing his own weapon. Sylar electrocuted one of the thick vines and it didn't seem to like that at all. Lashing out in retaliation, Sylar was flung towards the wall behind him with a sickening crunch which had most likely been his spine breaking and he fell still. Apparently satisfied with their work, the vines retracted and disappeared through the gapes they had created in the wall.

"Ah ha ha ha ha ha..."

A familiar cruel laugh echoed throughout the room. Alexia jumped down from the second floor balcony and stood before them in her transformed state, her skin stone-like and her eyes a gold-yellow color. Chris stood near the stairs and he knew Alexia would kill them all unless he thought quickly. As he remembered the last time he had encountered her, a plan formulated in his mind. She wasn't real. She wasn't real. He kept telling himself. Chris had defeated the real Alexia ten years ago back in Antarctica so this wasn't really her now. Filled with renewed determination, the BSAA soldier turned to Eva to share his plan.

"Alexia!" Chris shouted, stepping away from the stairs and grabbing her attention. "Looks like your precious vines missed me!"

The prideful woman's eyes fixed on him and a smile crept across her stone face. "So eager to die... Then I will grant your request and end your meaningless life."

She started to walk closer to Chris, beginning to lift her arm so she could hit him with her fire attack but then Alexia halted her procession when she felt a gun press against the side of her head. Shifting her eyes, she found the young blonde girl with the wounded arm had come up behind her without Alexia even noticing. Hot anger began to boil in the proud Ashford's blood at such a novice mistake. She never got the chance to show her fury though because darkness was clouding her vision and she collapsed onto the carpet.

While Chris kept Alexia's attention fixed on him, Eva had crept around behind the mutated woman with Chris's magnum clutched tightly in her usable hand. When Alexia had moved to approach Chris, Eva had gotten her chance and placed the gun against the side of the woman's head. Firing all six rounds into the T-Veronica virus infected woman, she had fallen. Looking down at the rapidly disappearing form of the defeated Ashford, Eva said two words to Alexia.

"Mistake, yours."

Alexia's body disappeared completely from sight and then the Ashford manor was fading as well. Soon they were all in an open field with flat grass and peering around, Eva realized where they were.

She voiced this realization. "It must be over. We're back in Africa."


	17. Deceptive Illusions

Chapter 16

-Deceptive Illusions-

In the aftermath of the brutal attack by Alexia and the enhanced tyrants, the group gathered themselves together in the grassy field in Africa. The grass itself was yellowing and clearly hadn't been receiving a sufficient amount of water in this African flatland but it provided something soft for the injured to be laid out on. Chris, Sheva, Danko, Bennet, Nathan, and Eva managed to escape the battle without injury. It was another story for their other companions. Peter was okay except for a small gash on his head and what he diagnosed as a fractured ankle that he would be fine limping around on. Claire Bennet and Sylar had been hurt in the fight but their wounds had healed up already and only the bloodstains on their clothes gave away that anything had ever happened to either of them. Matt, Chris's sister Claire, and Mohinder were the ones most seriously hurt. All three were still unconscious and had been laid out comfortably on the grass next to one another. The rest of the group sat around by their unconscious allies, wondering what to do now that it was all over.

Chris sat on the grass beside his unconscious sister, watching over her with worry etched on his face. Every now and then one of the members of the group would look over at him, clearly waiting to see if he was going to tell them what they should do next. Wesker, who was still recovering from the gaping hole the vine had put in his stomach, sat on the grass with Eva glued to his side in concern. The blonde haired tyrant would heal but it would take longer than usual because of his overdose of the serum. The frequent glances the others in the group were giving Chris, did not escape Wesker and he was the first to mention anything to the man.

"We could take them to a hospital." Wesker suggested, referring to the three unmoving forms on the grass.

He shook his head in disagreement without bothering to remove his eyes from his sister. Sheva approached her partner and rested a hand on Chris's shoulder.

"It would be a good idea to get them to safety, Chris. But before we leave Africa we need to find Uroboros."

He frowned and narrowed his eyes at his partner. "What? Why do we need to find Uroboros?"

"To destroy it of course." Sheva seemed surprised that he was so negative about the idea.

Chris relaxed a bit and his wariness faded. "Oh. Where is Uroboros, Wesker?"

The man drummed his fingers on his his thigh calmly. He seemed to be thinking, calculating something in his mind. Perhaps deciding whether or not revealing that information would benefit him in any way. Apparently he decided it wouldn't do him any good to tell for his lips tightened and he said nothing. Chris stood, facing Wesker with growing frustration. He looked ready to draw his weapon and his fingers hovered over the gun, just itching to take it out. The BSAA agent appeared to be hoping the other man would give him a reason to shoot him. Wesker remained stone faced as usual and merely lifted his head to stare back at Chris. After a long moment of tense apprehension between the two long-time enemies, Wesker answered him.

"Uroboros will never be released into the atmosphere. I promise you that."

Chris continued to stare at Wesker, trying to figure out what was going on in that head of his but it was impossible to read any emotions or signs when he was wearing those dark sunglasses. It didn't help that Wesker had never been an easy man to understand either, even back when he had been the STARS captain over ten years ago. One thing Chris did know about him was that Wesker was a man of his word. He had promised Uroboros wouldn't be released which meant it wouldn't be and the world was once again safe from the evil man's plans. Or was he good now? Chris had once looked up to this man when he had been his captain and had learned a lot from him.

Chris wanted to believe Wesker could be good but doubt continued to nag at him. Could anyone really change just like that? Chris wasn't sure but he would do what he always did in these situations. He would trust the man for now and give him the benefit of the doubt. The agent relaxed his hand away from his gun holster, visibly showing his acceptance of Wesker's reply. Eva caught Chris's eye and smiled at him.

"He always keeps his promises." Eva told Chris, a smile still spread across her face. "After this he's going to keep his promise to me too."

He opened his mouth to ask her what promise Wesker was supposed to keep but he instantly forgot about that when his sister shifted on the ground beside him and opened her eyes. Blinking rapidly a few times, Claire adjusted to keeping her eyes open and took notice of her brother for the first time.

"Chris!" She sat up quickly.

The sudden change in position caused her to feel a bit dizzy and she placed a hand to her forehead. Other than the brief disorientation she appeared to be all right and she grinned openly at Chris as she got to her feet.

"Looks like this time it's me on the ground and you freaking out." Claire commented with a laugh.

Chris recalled their previous meeting when he had been unconscious after Las Plagas was removed from his body and Claire had been looking down at him with concern. He rubbed the still aching shoulder wound the emergency parasite removal had left him with as he remembered, and gave her a small smile. Chris was finding it difficult to be happy right now because he had a very bad feeling. He thought it was too good to be true that they were suddenly back in Africa. The soldier found it hard to believe something as powerful as Sin would simply give up after a few of its illusions were defeated. Chris forced himself from his thoughts when he caught Claire staring at him as she waited for him to say something.

"Yeah I guess so," he said to her. "We really need to stop getting ourselves hurt."

She scoffed. "Yeah right. Then you would need to stop throwing yourself into danger and that's never gonna happen. Not as long as people are out there getting hurt and you know it."

"I'm just doing my job, Claire." Chris retorted defensively. "I don't try to get myself killed."

"Could have fooled me." Claire muttered.

Chris stiffened. He could feel the awkwardness that had been between them ever since Jill's presumed death two years ago surfacing. Chris had never forgiven himself for losing Jill that fateful day in Spencer's estate and he'd shut himself away from his friends and sister. He'd gone on mission after mission with the BSAA just to keep himself busy and his mind off of Jill. He had been trying to create the illusion that he was okay. He'd failed to be around because he just hadn't wanted to be near anything that resembled the part of his life Jill had been in. And by doing that he had rarely seen his sister for the last two years, and Claire had never forgiven him for it. Claire studied his darkening features and quickly changed her tune with a lighter comment.

"I'm just saying that you should be more careful, Chris. Or there may never be any little miniature Redfields running around in the future." Claire said to him, smiling again.

Eva giggled to herself, receiving stares from all around. None of them had ever heard the usually very serious girl giggle like that before. Not that her giggle was a bad thing. She had a very nice smile too and it was pleasant to see her bringing it out more. Claire Bennet had the growing suspicion that it was Chris which caused her to act in this way but she couldn't say for sure in the short period she'd been around them.

"Aww...little mini Redfields. How cute!" the green-eyed girl remarked with a smile.

"Mini...Redfields..." Wesker began, speaking very slowly as he stared at Chris and then Eva. "Perish the thought."

A few smiles and a couple laughs from some of the others sitting around, followed Wesker's words. Chris acknowledged Wesker's comment with a grunt of agreement. He couldn't picture himself ever having any kids. From the Air Force, to the Raccoon City Police Department Special Tactics And Rescue Service, to his Anti-Umbrella sabotage missions, and finally to his current job as an agent in the Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance, he couldn't see starting a family being added in there. He had been a soldier in some form or another all his life and didn't really know how to do anything else. Fighting was what he was good at. And yes, throwing himself into harm's way was what he'd been doing forever. A life of working to protect others was all Chris had known and he didn't want that to change. Especially when he had failed Jill in such a way. Her death meant he had a lot to make up for.

"What should we do, Chris?" Sheva asked, interrupting his thoughts. "I don't recognize this part of Africa. We could be anywhere. We may not even be anywhere near Kijuju."

A thought occurred to Chris at that moment. "Sheva, what ever happened to the rest of your team? You were alone when you came to the mansion."

Sheva's expression dropped, growing sad. "A large group of majini ambushed us... They didn't make it."

"How very sad." Wesker said as he climbed to his feet, Eva following suit. His tone was emotionless and it was easy to tell he didn't really mean it. "There's a building over there."

Sheva and Chris turned and fixed matching glares on Wesker at the same time. Sheva placed her hands on her hips and Chris crossed his arms across his chest.

"Have some respect for the dead. They were our comrades." Chris told Wesker, looking slightly pissed off.

"No, they were more than comrades. Some of them were my friends." Sheva revised, sounding upset.

She was glaring at Wesker with a look Chris had never seen on her face before. Her eyes seemed so different and extremely hateful which he had never thought possible in someone as good as Sheva.

"Everyone dies, my dear. It's a fact of life." Wesker said, addressing Sheva. Then after a pause, he added arrogantly, "Well...everyone but me. I can't die it seems. I just keep coming back... Right, Chris?"

It was his turn to glare at Wesker, clenching his jaw as he forced himself not to let the tyrant get to him. It was incredibly hard not to strike out at the other man, especially when he was giving Chris his trademark smirk. But he also knew it wasn't wise because even injured, Wesker could probably tear him apart. Seemingly satisfied with Chris's reaction to his words, the tyrant returned to the matter at hand and repeated his words from earlier.

"There's a building over there. Let's go over there." Wesker said, pointing past Chris's shoulder.

Chris kept his arms folded against his chest and continued to glare at the man. He didn't like Wesker giving orders now in place of him. And he especially didn't like that he could hear everyone getting to their feet as they actually listened to the man. Glancing behind him to where Wesker had pointed, he couldn't see signs of any buildings and so he turned back to the tyrant with annoyance.

"I don't see any building so how can you see it? And we can't move out yet because Matt and Mohinder are still unconscious in case it slipped your mind." His mouth upturned in a small smirk as he added, "I suppose you forgot seeing as you're getting old."

Wesker didn't seem at all disturbed by the insinuation that he was getting old. Instead, he drew closer to his nemesis until he was standing so close that Chris's nose would touch him if he moved even the slightest inch forward. The BSAA agent held his ground, continuing to stare the blonde tyrant in the eyes or at least at his dark shades. Wesker could sense Chris's discomfort at their close proximity to one another and he enjoyed every moment of it. Leaning close and placing his lips right beside the man's ear, he spoke, but he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear despite the fact that he was so close to the intended recipient of his words.

"I'm not human, Chris. I can see much further than a normal individual. And as for your friends... Matt and Mohinder I believe... Well they've been awake since around the time the appalling idea of you actually reproducing came up." Wesker informed him ever so shrewdly.

He clenched his fists, grinding his teeth together as he fumed silently at Wesker's hefty blow to his ego. His joy at bringing the BSAA agent down a notch showed as he stepped back and smirked. As furious as he was at the tyrant, he also didn't have anything clever or defiant to say for once because Wesker was right. Matt and Mohinder were standing along with the others. They didn't look in the best condition but they were awake and standing nonetheless. Wesker was always more in the know it seemed, and it drove Chris crazy to no end.

"Fine, let's head over to the building," he muttered under his breath.

Wesker tilted his head, cocking an ear towards the other man. "I'm sorry, you'll have to speak up. Did you just say we should agree with my decision and go over to the building across the field?"

He grimaced as he realized Wesker was going to make him admit it out loud to everyone. Fixing a glare at the tyrant one last time, he turned his back on the blonde haired man to look in the direction they were to go.

"Yeah, yeah. You're right about heading over to the building. Can we go now?" the agent asked with a tired sigh.

"Certainly." Chris flinched as he felt hot breath against his ear. Without Chris noticing, the tyrant had moved to stand directly behind him to whisper in his ear. "And as for your remark about my aging, I don't do that any more."

He raised an eyebrow slightly. He didn't think the other man looked any older than when he last saw him two years ago or even ten years ago for that matter but still...

"You don't age?! Not at all?"

Wesker stepped away from Chris, giving him space again, and nodded once. "Correct."

Chris stared at him in amazement, intrigued by this new information. Wesker moved past him, ignoring the stares, and started across the field to the building in the distance. Eva hurried to catch up so she could walk beside him, and the others trailed behind them. After exchanging glances with his partner, Chris and Sheva followed the rest of the group across the field. All he could do was be glad he had successfully completed his original mission and hope they had seen the last of Sin's deception.


	18. The Thin Line Between Good and Evil

Chapter 17

-The Thin Line Between Good and Evil-

After about ten minutes of walking, the building Wesker had spotted came into view. The building turned out to be a very rundown looking shed and the disappointment was obvious on all of their faces. Except for Wesker and Eva of course, who remained ever so emotionless as they took in the sight of the worn shed as they drew nearer. Claire was walking beside her brother and Chris noticed her continuous looks of concern and curiosity she kept giving him as they walked. The BSAA soldier sighed loudly.

"What is it, Claire?"

"What? Uh..nothing, nevermind," she stammered, startled that he had seen her looking.

"What's on your mind, Claire?" Chris asked, pressingly.

"Is something wrong, Chris?" Claire finally asked him after a moment of hesitation.

The group had reached the shed and now temporarily paused as they waited to see what Chris's reply would be to Claire's question. Chris smiled at his sister reassuringly.

"Nothing is wrong, Claire. We're back in Africa safe and sound. Everything's fine now," he assured her.

His answer sounded sincere and confident but Claire wasn't convinced in the slightest. She met Chris's gaze and the two siblings stared at each other before Claire shook her head sadly. "You're lying."

Chris seemed genuinely surprised. "What do you mean?"

Everyone was looking at him now, their piercing eyes bothered him and made him very uncomfortable as he tried to block them out and focus on his sister. He didn't even know these people... Except for the whole keeping each other alive all day kind of deal...

Claire seemed reluctant to answer and she scuffed the dirt ground with her shoe. But finally she returned her eyes to her brother who was smiling at her as if she would realize her mistake and how silly she had been, and told him flat out how she knew.

"I can always tell when you're lying. Your mouth smiles but your eyes don't." Claire revealed.

Chris's smile faltered and in an instant it became painfully obvious that Claire was right. Now everyone's eyes boring into Chris made him feel like too much pressure was on him and his shoulder wound chose to start throbbing right at that moment. Placing a hand to the bothersome injury, he took a deep breath and admitted to it.

"You're right. I just don't feel like this is over. I don't believe Sin is finished with us yet and I have this bad feeling that something awful is going to happen."

"Don't worry, Chris. Nothing bad is going to happen." Eva said comfortingly. "Sin told us there was a traitor in our group. That they were lying about their true intentions and that that someone was going to try to kill one of us and kidnap another. But it never happened. Sin was just lying and deceiving us like always."

"But what if that's what this is. What if Sin is deceiving us right now by making us believe we're safe and that it's all over..." Chris trailed off, unwilling to think about what that would mean were it to be the truth.

Eva came over to him and rested a hand on his arm. "Relax, nothing bad is going to happen to you."

Chris looked solemnly at her. "I know. I don't think it's going to happen to me."

The way he was staring straight at Eva when he said that gave her the impression he meant her. She searched his eyes for some evidence that she was right in feeling that way but he was looking past her now, at the shed.

"I suppose we should take a peek inside while we're here." Chris decided, forgetting his fears for the time being.

No one made a move to follow and the agent went in alone. They were all wondering about whether Chris's feeling had any solid basis to back it up. Eva was staring at the spot Chris had been standing in, still puzzled at the way he had looked at her before. Wesker came to stand beside his daughter.

"He's made a connection with you so now he thinks the worst is going to happen to you." Wesker said to her as he stared out at the vast openness of the dry landscape around them.

Eva lifted her head to look at him in confusion. "I don't understand."

"A connection, a bond. For some reason the two of you are able to see eye to eye with one another. Maybe it's because you both lost parents at a young age. Or perhaps it's because you both live to fight and would never back down even when all the odds are against you. I don't presume to know why, but I do see how he trusts you and you trust him. Regardless of the why, now that the connection has been made, Chris fears losing it." Wesker explained to her, still staring straight ahead of himself.

Eva frowned slightly. "He helped me to stop you from making the biggest mistake ever. He did that even though I gave him every reason not to trust me. Chris won't lose me if I have any say in the matter. I know you don't like him but I do. I want to stay with him, dad..Wesker... He makes me feel important."

A slight twitch of Wesker's jaw was the only thing that gave away his aversion to her feelings but he chose not to voice his objections and instead continued what he had been trying to explain.

"You have to understand, Chris has had a very difficult life which makes him constantly worried about losing the ones he cares about most."

"Why is he so afraid of losing them?" Eva asked curiously.

Wesker's reply was immediate and simple. "Because he always does."

He left her with that and went to join Chris's search of the shed. Eva stayed where she was thinking over everything her father had said and it was then she remembered the woman in the black suit whose body had been in the foyer of the mansion. Eva had met the woman when she had come to stay with her father for a while. Excella Gionne had described the woman as one of her playthings and Eva had once overheard the two of them talking about the device on the woman's chest which apparently injected her with a chemical... Something called P30 that was able to control her actions.

It all hit Eva then. Jill was the woman who fell through the window with Wesker after saving Chris's life in Spencer's estate. Jill was also the woman who had died in the mansion's foyer earlier that day. The same woman who's corpse Eva had so coldly shot in the head without hesitation. A woman who was actually immune to the T-Virus so that had also been an unnecessary action. She was horrified at how insensitive she had been. Chris had just lost someone incredibly important to him for the second time in two years, this time for good, and Eva hadn't even blinked an eye. Right then and there she became determined to make it up to Chris one way or another.

With that decided, she headed past the others standing around and went inside the shed. Chris had already given up his search of the room and stood leaning against a wooden shelf attached to one of the walls as Wesker continued to rifle through meaningless pieces of paper. Eva noticed a top shelf and leaned up on the tips of her boots to reach what looked like a thin metal briefcase. She miscalculated her reach a bit and her hand accidentally sent the case crashing to the ground. It snapped open and a handgun fell out. Chris and Wesker turned their attention to the case when they heard it fall and watched Eva bend down to pick it up. When she lifted the case, two pieces of paper fluttered out. One of them was wrinkled and ripped while the other seemed fresh and rather new. Snatching the papers up, she turned them over to skim their contents and instantly felt her blood run cold as certain words jumped out at her on the page. She stared at the pieces of paper for a very long time and Wesker grew impatient.

"Well? Anything of interest?" he asked her.

Eva tore her eyes from the paper and numbly nodded. "Everyone needs to hear this."

She avoided Chris's gaze and walked out of the shed to join the others with the pieces of paper held tightly in her hands. Wesker and Chris followed and stood near the entrance to the shed as she stood in front of the entire group.

"What's going on?" Sheva asked Chris as she came to stand by her partner.

Claire was with Sheva, giving him the same curious look and Chris just shook his head. He didn't know what this was about any more than they did but already a sinking feeling was beginning inside of him. When everyone was giving Eva their full attention, the girl began to read from the wrinkled and slightly torn piece of paper.

"Memo 3174. Revitalization of Umbrella. The Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) has been created under the guise of a bio-terrorism government agency. The organization's true purpose is to revive the Umbrella Corporation and using a bio-terrorism agency will allow us access to information on virus activity. As planned, ex-STARS members and survivors of the mansion incident C. Redfield and J. Valentine have been recruited to the BSAA agency so their anti-Umbrella activities can be closely monitored."

Eva did not allow time for anyone to say anything about what she had just read as she moved on to the next piece of paper. The second sheet of paper looked much fresher and newer than the previous one.

"Delta team-Mission Orders. Alpha team has been sent to Kijuju with C. Redfield as commander and have been given false information regarding the bio-weapons dealer Ricardo Irving. Their team is completely in the dark about our true goals and should prove to be a successful distraction in keeping A. Wesker occupied until your team is ready to deal with him. Mission objectives: Retrieve sample of Uroboros, retrieve sample of Progenitor virus (can be procured in diluted form by retrieving a sample of A. Wesker's blood), eliminate A. Wesker upon retrieval of the viruses, capture test subject E. Wesker for further experimentation and observation."

Eva lifted her eyes from the paper and glared furiously at Sheva. "You were with Umbrella this entire time!"

Sheva stared wide-eyed at her in shock. "What? No! I had no idea!"

The woman turned to Chris, her eyes pleading for him to listen to her. "You have to believe me, Chris. I didn't know my team was working for Umbrella. I'm just as surprised as you! I thought Umbrella was finished, destroyed. How could I have known they were involved in the events here? Don't you believe your partner, Chris?"

He stared at her with uncertainty but he was leaning towards believing her. Not only because he always gave people the benefit of the doubt. He would listen to her because this was Sheva. She was a good person who had saved his life numerous times on their mission in Kijuju and he wasn't going to turn his back on her now. At least, those were his initial thoughts. His thoughts and opinions rapidly changed when Eva revealed more.

"You say you're not involved with Umbrella? And that you had no knowledge of these orders?" Eva asked her.

Sheva nodded her head vigorously. "That's right. I had no idea of Umbrella's involvement!"

Eva's expression turned instantly harsher. "Then why is this letter written to you?!"

Sheva stared at Eva, her story falling apart in front of her as Eva read the last lines on the piece of paper.

"The fate of the Umbrella Corporation now rests in your hands, Sheva Alomar. Do not disappoint us as so many have before."

When she was finished reading, Eva marched over and handed the papers straight to Chris. It was his partner who had betrayed them, giving him the right to see the evidence with his own eyes so there would be no doubt.

"Someone is betraying you all, someone is lying, someone will try to kill one of you and kidnap another..." Eva spoke loudly, recalling Sin's warning for them. "Sin was right. Sheva is the liar! She was working for Umbrella all along!"

Chris was numb as he stared at the pieces of paper in his hands. In printed letters was the evidence of his partner's betrayal and it stung him like a thousand sharp knives piercing his heart. It was horrible enough that all this time he was working for the BSAA he had actually been working for Umbrella. But somehow the fact that his new partner was involved from the very beginning, intentionally working for the evil Corporation made the realization much worse. Chris could feel the pain of betrayal ripping away at his insides and he just couldn't shake this terribly hollow feeling that was growing inside of him. It was only when he realized Sheva had drawn her gun and was pointing it at Wesker that he forced himself to snap out of his stunned daze.

Sheva was backing away from the group but keeping her gaze on Wesker. Her eyes displayed pure hatred for the tyrant opposite her and she paid little attention to anyone else. The African woman kept the gun level with Wesker's chest as he stared back at her quite calmly. Even though he was the one with the gun pointed at him, he appeared to be the most composed and unaffected out of them all.

"The serum was supposed to kill you. Why didn't it kill you?!" Sheva demanded, her anger evident in her tone.

Wesker folded his arms against his chest as he met her furious glare. "Correction. Your superiors thought an overdose of the serum might kill me. Umbrella had no way to know if it would work or not but I suppose they didn't bother to inform you of that little fact. And I'll also assume they didn't mention the Kijuju area was swarming with infected majini either. Umbrella sent you and your team on a suicide mission, my dear. How does that make you feel, hm? Knowing you are just another dispensable pawn for Umbrella."

"Shut up!" Sheva screamed at him.

Her voice trembled and it was obvious she was losing control rapidly. Chris quickly moved to stand in the space between Wesker and Sheva as her finger pressed dangerously tighter on the trigger of her handgun.

"Sheva, you don't want to do this!" Chris reasoned with her. "You're not a killer. You're a good person, Sheva. It's not too late for you to back out of your mission. You can still get away from Umbrella."

She tore her eyes away from Wesker, her gaze still angry but now mixed with fear as well. "No, I can't. Nobody leaves Umbrella. If they're done with you, then you're as good as dead. And if you try to get out yourself, then you're as good as dead. There is no leaving. And if I fail them, they won't just come after me either. They'll come after my friends and family too after I'm dead. Umbrella doesn't leave loose ends. I mean shit, Chris, these people blew up an entire city just to cover what they'd done."

Chris knew she was referring to Raccoon City and he sadly thought about the place which had once been his home. An entire bustling, crowded city completely wiped off the map just so Umbrella could avoid a lawsuit. Meeting Sheva's fearful gaze he could see that she was becoming more and more unstable.

"I know better than anyone, the things Umbrella's done," he informed her, speaking soothingly to try and calm her down. "But I also know people who have escaped Umbrella's grasp. I know people who have survived them and I'll help you do the same. You have a choice, Sheva."

"Yeah." Chris's sister piped up.

She came to stand on Sheva's left side but far enough away so as not to freak her out and cause her to start shooting. Claire smiled at Sheva, encouraging her to listen to her brother's words.

"You get to choose whether you're going to be good or whether you're going to be evil. If you side with Umbrella then you're just like them, evil to the very core. Give the gun to Chris, and you're one of us. You'll be one of the good guys." Claire told her softly.

Chris watched as indecision flickered across Sheva's features and he used that for his moment to seal her cooperation with them.

"Sheva."

Her thoughtful eyes darted to him when he spoke her name. He'd only known her for the extent of their mission but he was usually a good judge of character, barring his ex-captain Albert Wesker, and he knew Sheva was capable of making the right decision. Chris only had to use his next words appropriately.

"You told me about what happened to your parents." Chris formulated. "They died in an accident similar to the ones Umbrella Corporation has let happen again and again. Do you really want to work for people no different than those who caused your parents' deaths?"

The haunted look in her eyes caused Chris to feel a bit guilty for reminding Sheva of how her parents had died but he knew that look also meant he had convinced her. He held out a hand to take the gun and after a few seconds of hesitation, she handed the weapon over. Once the gun was out of her grasp, the younger Claire came over to Sheva and smiled gently at her.

"Now you're one of the good guys." Claire Bennet said to her happily.

Sheva tried to force a smile but failed miserably. The rest of the group were eyeing her with much deserved distrust and suspicion. She doubted anyone would be relying on her anytime soon. The worst stare was coming from the youngest member of their group, Eva. The girl's green eyes pierced Sheva's brown ones with such force that the young African field agent quickly averted her gaze to stare at the dirt ground. Feeling Eva's eyes were still on her, Sheva lifted her eyes to meet the younger girl's own again. Confusion filled her when Eva's gaze became horrified.

"Danko, no!" Eva hollered.

Wondering what Eva was so upset about, the female BSAA agent turned around and found Danko standing no more than a foot away. Time seemed to freeze as Sheva heard two muted blasts and a sudden pain in her stomach but couldn't grasp that the two things were connected. Then she couldn't feel anything below her neck any more and felt strangely detached from herself.

Danko was looking at her stomach now, and numbly, she lowered her gaze to look down. Sheva didn't understand why she couldn't feel anything, but when she saw a wet red substance spreading across her shirt, she knew it was blood. She stared back at Danko as she realized he had shot her twice.

"Oh," was all she managed to utter as she collapsed onto the dirty and dry ground.


	19. The Cost of Life

Chapter 18

-The Cost of Life-

It all happened so fast. One moment everyone was standing around trying to grasp that Sheva had been working for Umbrella but now apparently was going to be one of the good guys, and the next moment Danko was walking quickly over to Sheva and pulling his sidearm out of his jacket. Before anyone even had a chance to do anything, Danko fired his weapon twice at her stomach when the young woman turned around. Sheva didn't seem to understand what happened to her but she fell soon after the shots were fired. When Chris started to rush to her aide, Danko had simply pointed his weapon at the fallen woman and shot her in the head so that there would be no saving her. All of them stared at Danko in horror but it turned to disquieting realization when a second Danko began yelling in outrage at his imposter standing over Sheva's body.

"That's not me! You bastard!" Danko cursed at his identical person.

The Danko look-alike standing by Sheva smiled. "You should be thanking me. I killed your traitor."

Chris was the first to call the look-alike out. "Sin! You'll pay for her death!"

Danko, or rather, Sin, chuckled. "I've given you a reason to kill me, Christopher. Now we can have our fight."

Before their eyes, he began to change, shifting into a handsome younger man. He had shaggy silver hair that fell slightly over his eyes that appeared an icy blue color. He was muscular, and wore black leather pants, boots, a black shirt with the hood down, a long red coat that fell just past the knees with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, black leather wrist guards, and fingerless black gloves. After he was finished transforming, he grinned at them. Though his lips were openly twisted up in a smile, the smile failed to reach his eyes, exposing how false it really was.

"It was so disappointing when all of you managed to survive my precious Alexia illusion. She was so powerful and you just had to snuff her out like wind to a flame. Killing Sheva myself has made me feel a bit better I'll admit." Sin told them. "But killing you will be even better."

Sin addressed Chris when he said the last part and his fake smile faded. Chris stared back at him, angry at Sheva's death and how Sin didn't even care that she was dead.

"Oh and to inform you, in this form I'm known as Dante." Sin educated them. "Hm..this place doesn't seem quite fitting for our fight. How about the place that truly started it all for you, Christopher?"

The African flatlands were now fading, along with the very air around them. Soon they found themselves standing on a flat dirt covered hill of some kind, and directly to the group's left was a huge drop as the hill abruptly ended. The sky was a light blue color and the sun appeared to be just beginning to rise, compared to when they had been in Africa where the sun had been setting. Sin, or rather, Dante, was still standing in front of them and he waved a hand vaguely behind him.

"Remember this place, Christopher? Well..technically you weren't there when it happened. Perhaps your beloved sister recalls her moments here. Well, Claire?" Dante asked eagerly.

Chris's sister frowned and stepped closer to Dante so she could see where he had gestured. It didn't take long for her to be flooded with memories at the sight. Suddenly a loud explosion echoed throughout the area where they stood and an enormous mushroom cloud expanded from beyond the hill.

"Raccoon City!" Claire exclaimed with barely masked horror.

"Very good." Dante said to her. "An interesting place for your brother to meet his end."

"Don't you touch him!" Claire cried out.

Dante's response was to lift her off her feet by her chin before he tossed her away. She hit the ground and her head smacked into the hard dirt surface but she seemed all right as she sat up. Chris made a movement to rush to where Claire fell but Dante speaking his name caused him to stay where he was.

"Christopher, this is for you." Dante said, tossing a sword at Chris's feet.

Chris stared at what he recognized to be a katana blade, then returned his gaze to Dante. "You can't be serious."

Dante ignored Chris and lifted his eyes to the blue sky. "The sky should be in mourning. So many have died by my hands today. So many of your friends..."

Trailing off as he watched Chris, Dante lifted a hand to the sky without moving his eyes off of his opponent. Dark clouds suddenly appeared in the sky and they moved rapidly to cover the clear blue until everything was covered in murky gray clouds. The group stared, bewildered, at what Dante could do with the wave of a hand.

"Much more suitable. Now the skies mourn Jill's death, Christopher." Dante said, his voice taunting.

He clenched his teeth together, stifling his desire to attack the other. It seemed Dante wasn't finished though and he continued his torment of the BSAA soldier.

"Oh yes, and your new partner Sheva. She should be mourned too." Dante gave Chris a look of mock scolding. "It must have been painful to have someone you trusted turn on you like that. A person deceiving their partner..is the ultimate betrayal."

"Don't talk about her like that. She was a good person and you murdered her in cold blood," he accused.

"So honorable of you, Christopher. Defending her to the very last. But there's no sense in defending her any more now that she's dead, so don't even bother. Besides, had she lived, she would merely live long enough to disappoint you again. You humans are so terribly flawed creatures. Constant bickering, greed, vanity... Of course I revel in it. If you weaklings weren't so pathetically predictable then I wouldn't be standing here at this moment, stronger than ever. So come on, Christopher. Pick up your sword and fight me."

Chris made no move to obey Dante and the silver haired man sneered. "Every moment you delay our fight, one of your friends will pay the price."

As if to prove his threat, he swept a hand in Wesker's direction and the tyrant made a gurgled gasp of pain. Wesker clutched a knife that had stabbed his throat as blood poured from his mouth. Horrified, Eva ran to her father as he sank to his knees. Angrily, Chris turned away from them to face Dante.

"Dante!" he yelled at the evil man. "Leave them alone!"

"Then pick up your sword. I won't even use mine." Dante offered with a smile.

For the first time Chris noticed the other man had a sword identical to his, sheathed at his waist. Giving the man his relentless glare, he stooped down and picked up the sword. He had some experience with a sword as he had taken some lessons long ago in the past, but that was a lifetime ago, and Chris was much better with a gun. He was an excellent marksman and Chris figured Dante probably knew it and was exploiting something he wasn't so good at. Checking on Wesker he saw the man's wound seemed to be healing but he didn't look pleased that he had been so rudely attacked and he watched Dante with dangerous eyes.

Furious at all this man had cost him, Chris leveled his sword at his opponent just as something sharp pierced his chest. The BSAA soldier swooned on his feet suddenly feeling light headed, and he dropped to one knee. His mind became confused and his vision blurry. After a moment it cleared up a bit and he slowly lowered his eyes to his chest. A dart of some kind protruded from his upper right chest and Chris was guessing it had been laced with some kind of drug because he felt very disoriented now.

"Cheap shot!" Peter shouted at Dante in anger.

From his kneeling position, Chris ripped the dart, glistening with his blood out and tossed it to the ground. Standing, he glared at Dante furiously for his unfair attack. The other man merely stared back at Chris, emotionless.

"Poor reflexes," was all Dante said before running towards Chris to attack.

He blinked rapidly, staring blankly as his opponent came nearer. It felt like a strobe light was blinking all around him so he was having trouble recognizing precisely how close Dante actually was to him. Knowing he had to attack soon, he made his prediction and swept his blade horizontally in front of him towards the right. Chris felt his throat constrict when he felt his sword pass through nothing but air. Dante had still been far out of his reach when he had swept his blade across and he felt the other man's fist as it smashed the underside of his chin. His head snapped back at the hard blow and blood dripped from his mouth. Faltering backwards, Chris threw his head forward again. He wiped the dripping red liquid away with the back of his hand and charged at Dante in a dazed but determined state. He swept his sword in front of him again but Dante stepped to the right so it missed.

This pattern continued for a while, with Chris swinging his sword randomly to try and land a hit. But his blue-eyed opponent dodged his attacks with ease and seemed to be enjoying himself. Dante blocked Chris's next attack with his leather wrist guard and then proceeded to bring his leg up, connecting his knee with the side of the agent's head. This caused him to spin around in midair several times before he landed on the hard ground face first.

He pulled himself to his feet and Dante appeared beside him. The silver haired man lifted him up by the back of the neck and threw a fist into his stomach. Chris gasped sharply as the air left his lungs and he doubled over to clutch his stomach. Dante intertwined his fingers to make one big fist and brought them down on Chris's back. Chris dropped to his knees and stood quickly only to find a hand shove into his face, pushing him away. He stumbled but propelled himself forward to attack Dante. The man waited for him to get within range and then slammed a fist into his face before smashing a boot into his opponent's chest. The kick was so powerful it sent the BSAA agent flying backwards until his body connected with a rather large boulder that sat on the hill near the rest of the group.

Claire winced for the pain it must have caused her brother when his head connected with the rock along with the rest of his body. She wanted desperately to help Chris out but a quick glance at Wesker still resting on the ground as he waited for his body to heal from Dante's attack, told her it wouldn't be very smart to try anything. She would only get herself killed and then she wouldn't be a help to anyone. Eva was kneeling by her father with a hand placed on top of his, but her attention was not on him. She was watching the fight and growing increasingly worried about Chris's well-being as the battle went on. Eva was watching him now as he dragged himself to his feet with a palm covering his right eye. Blood could be seen trailing from the eye and the crimson liquid ran from his right ear as well. He was breathing heavily and his chest rose and fell visibly with each breath. He was exhausted and it was easy to see it. Dante smiled. He seemed to feel his victory was assured. His smile widened when Chris started to make his way towards him.

"Why don't you give up, Christopher? Humans so love to give up, so why don't you? What keeps you fighting?" Dante asked him, truly curious.

Chris let his hand slide away from his right eye and they could see it was swollen shut. Blood had started dripping from the corner of his mouth again but this time he made no move to brush it away. He stared at Dante with his one usable eye, the look of defiance still strong.

"I have a duty to stop you and people like you who hurt innocents. So the BSAA is a cover for Umbrella, fine. But that doesn't change the numerous missions I completed as an agent, to stop evil corporations like Umbrella. And now that I know Umbrella's still out there, I'm going to find them and take them down once and for all. First I'm going to finish you and send you back to hell where you belong." Chris told him purposefully.

Dante scoffed and took a knife out from his jacket. He flipped it casually as he regarded the other man with distaste.

"Are you even aware of who you fight for? You fight to stop those that sin by protecting sinners. Don't you see? Everybody lies, cheats, steals... People are selfish and greedy. They care nothing for the sacrifices you make and would throw you to the wolves if it would benefit them in any way. You fight to save sinners who don't deserve to live."

"No. There are good people out there. Everyone makes mistakes but that doesn't mean they should have to suffer or die. It's the evil ones who don't value human lives that deserve justice and I'm going to give it to them." Chris said with determination.

"Foolishly stubborn to the end I see. Oh well, I don't need you to understand how the world truly is. I just need you to die."

As soon as those words were said, Dante ran towards Chris with the knife and the brunette did the same but with his sword. The effects of the drug seemed to have worn off because Chris's run was more balanced, his remaining good eye locked on Dante. Chris swung but Dante was now behind him and he felt the knife crisscross against his back several times. The BSAA agent screamed in agony and then a boot connected with his side, sending him sprawling to the ground. His back felt like it was on fire and blood ran into his one functional eye from a new gash above his right eyebrow. Heavily injured with his back bloodied by the numerous slash wounds, Chris struggled to stand despite his tormented body.

The group looked on in dread as it was easy to see who was winning this battle. The drugs that had plagued Chris's body from the start of the fight had sealed his doom. Wesker's neck was healed and even though his stomach wound still bothered him, he stood when Dante injured Chris badly. Eva was already on her feet beside Wesker, watching in muted horror as the BSAA soldier and Dante raced to attack one another yet again.

Chris gave a cry of anger as he charged at the heartless being opposite of him, closing his one good eye as he let pure adrenaline fuel him so he could attack. Raising the sword above his head, he swept it in a downward arc. He felt the blade sink deep into flesh and the wet of blood splashing onto his face. He brought the weapon back down to his side and heard Dante's gasp of surprise because the blade had hit its mark. Slowly Chris opened his eye and lifted his head, thinking his enemy was surprised he had lost. Instead it was Chris's turn to look shocked. Eva had stepped between the two men to prevent Dante's knife from hurting him. Doing this had caused her to step directly in the path of Chris's blind attack and his sword had sunk deep into her as well as Dante's shoulder.

The next few moments seemed to pass in slow motion for Chris and the others. Eva's eyes bulged in surprised pain at the sword that had just cut through nearly the entire right side of her body. Her fingers were still clasped around the blade of Dante's knife and she felt frozen in time. Chris's sword had also dealt a deadly blow to his intended target and Dante stood staring at Eva in paralyzed shock as blood gushed from his deep wound. His hand slipped from the knife as he started to fall and he gasped out his last words to Eva.

"I don't...understand...humans..." Dante gasped before he fell dead, his eyes staring blankly at the darkened sky above.

As soon as Dante fell, Eva followed after. Gripping the knife's blade she started to fall backwards, her face still displaying surprise. Chris immediately released his grip on the sword and caught Eva in his arms. The motion of falling seemed to have awakened Eva from her daze and the green-eyed girl lifted her eyes to stare happily into Chris's brown one. Chris could feel the very life draining out of the young girl and tears threatened to emerge but he forced them back. He had to be strong for her.

The sky around them was clearing up, apparently since Dante was now dead. But Chris almost felt like the sky should have stayed dark. The darkened sky would have been appropriate as he held the dying girl. Chris felt grief flood through him. Why did these things happen to him? Why did the people he care about always have to die? He was so tired of everything going wrong in his life. Was he cursed or something? So that everyone around him would die? Though Eva was fading quickly, her eyes shone with happiness as she stared up at him and Chris couldn't understand how she could be happy when her life was ending.

"Chris..." Eva said to him weakly.

Her lips turned upwards in a strained smile. "I'm grateful...to be able to help you..."

With those words said, she continued to stare up at him. The smile began to fade from her face and her eyes became dull. They were empty eyes now, no longer seeing Chris and no longer seeing anything. Staring sadly down at the stilled girl, Chris let the tears come.

His sister was the one who finally convinced Chris to release Eva's body from his tight embrace. He stood and let his sister lead him away from the corpse and over to the others. Wesker moved past them to go to where his daughter laid and Chris felt guilty. He had forgotten Wesker was her father. He could imagine how much pain the man must be in to see his own daughter get killed. Before all of this had happened, he wouldn't have thought Wesker even capable of loving anyone. But Chris had seen how he'd behaved around Eva and knew that Wesker was still able to love because it was obvious how much he loved his daughter.

Wesker hadn't even made it over to Eva's body when he froze in place.

Chris frowned at Wesker. "What is it?"

"Ugh, death is not fun." Eva said with a loud groan as she sat upright.


	20. What Doesn't Kill Us...

Chapter 19

-What Doesn't Kill Us...-

The disbelief was palpable among their group. Chris shifted his eyes to the spot where Eva was now getting to her feet. Her black shirt was soaked in blood and the girl fingered the sticky substance with distaste.

"Time for new clothes it seems," she said.

She seemed to be trying to alleviate the heaviness of the group's uniformed confusion and shock and when she saw it hadn't worked, she tried a different tactic.

"When I died, there was darkness," she told everyone earnestly. "But then I just woke up and I was lying on the ground, completely healed. Well...not completely."

Eva glanced at her still very much injured left arm which had fallen out of the sling and now hung limply at her side. An afterthought occurring to her, Eva bent down and lifted her pant leg. Her scar she had received as a child was still there. Looking at her father, she appeared to be more curious than anything else.

"I'm to assume this is the R-Virus taking effect, right? It's probably important to remember it only heals the wound that killed me and not any of my other injuries," she noted calmly.

Chris shook his head, incredulously. Eva had just died and come back to life and yet she was more interested in the scientific aspect of it. She really was Wesker's kid. Sneaking a peek at the blonde tyrant, Chris could practically see the gears shifting in Wesker's mind as he studied his daughter.

"But I wonder what else it might have done. You showed no symptoms of having the virus until your death. Perhaps this R-Virus is similar to mine as both viruses only took effect after the host's death. You may begin to show other symptoms so we must keep you under close observation." Wesker deduced, thoughtfully.

Eva rolled her eyes. "Well if you keep your promise than we won't have a problem, now will we?"

Before Wesker could reply, Peter gave his thoughts on the situation. "The one person in the group who can come back to life just happens to be the one Sin kills. Lucky."

Eva didn't seem to agree. "It still hurt like hell so I'm not really looking for a repeat performance any time soon."

"Sylar and I can come back to life too you know. So not really all that lucky." Claire Bennet pointed out. "Eva was really brave is what it is. She single-handedly saved Chris's life."

Eva shrugged but the smile growing on her lips gave her true feelings away. "Yeah, I guess," she conceded.

"Don't be modest." Chris said, giving her an appreciative smile. "You're a hero, Eva."

She blushed and avoided Chris's gaze while Chris's sister looked her brother up and down. "You look like crap."

"Gee, thanks. Always nice to hear." Chris replied sarcastically but he didn't seem all that upset.

In fact they all looked pretty relieved that it was over. For good this time. Sin or Dante, whatever he was to be called, was finally dead so they could relax and go home.

"Still pretty lucky." Peter mentioned again.

Chris frowned at him. "Yeah, I suppose it was."

Peter stared at Eva, his look rather hostile. She seemed taken aback by such a gaze from him but he didn't appear to care that she was bothered by it. Walking over to Chris, he took in the BSAA agent's disheveled appearance.

"Sin really did a number on you." Peter commented, his gaze resting on his swollen shut right eye.

"Yeah, Dante did. But I killed him so the rest doesn't matter. These wounds will heal so it's no big deal. Are you okay, Peter?" Chris asked with concern slipping into his voice.

Peter appeared not to notice. "Yes, those wounds will heal. But can you survive this?"

Chris startled when Peter snatched the gun from his thigh holster and pointed it at his chest. Failing to prevent Peter from taking his gun, Chris stared at the younger Petrelli in confusion and surprise.

"You know, you really should know your friends better, Christopher."

The way his name rolled off of Peter's tongue caused chills to run down the back of his neck. The BSAA soldier knew who this was now but he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

"Peter...?" he hesitantly asked.

A sneer twisted the younger man's face. "Not Peter."

He fired two bullets point blank into Chris's chest and then Peter was tackled to the ground. Bennet and Nathan were holding Peter to the ground and trying to get the gun away from him. Meanwhile Chris stood there in utter shock. He stared blankly in front of him, not really seeing anything. His face contorted in pain and choked sounds of disbelief escaped his throat. He stumbled backwards, unable to stand any more and the group realized he was going to fall over the side of the hill. A few of them ran to grab him, Eva in the lead, but Chris toppled over the edge before they could reach him. Eva was ready to jump off the ledge to try and get him but then a black figure blurred past her.

Wesker dove down the side of the hill after Chris, who was falling rapidly. He placed his arms tightly to his side and kept his body straight so he would plummet faster. When he reached Chris, he grabbed the BSAA agent's arm and then quickly latched on to the side of the cliff. Shifting Chris so that he was carrying him more firmly in his arms, Wesker literally ran up the side of the hill with ease. When Wesker reached the top, he carried Chris away from the edge and placed him on the ground. Chris was still conscious but his breathing was labored and his throat emitted choking noises as blood gathered there. The tyrant supported Chris's head and shoulders upright so he could breathe easier as Mohinder raced over to them. The rest of the group gathered around them as well and Eva knelt on Chris's other side. Kneeling beside his legs, Mohinder placed his hands over the two gushing bullet wounds in Chris's chest, desperate to stop the bleeding.

"You have to save him, you have to save him." Eva kept repeating over and over.

Bennet and Nathan succeeded in taking the gun away from Peter and they tossed it away. Peter's eyes locked on Chris and he stopped struggling against Nathan and Bennet's hold as he started to laugh cruelly.

"In the end I won it seems. My victory was always ensured. One cannot hope to triumph over sin. Christopher only succeeded in delaying the inevitable." Dante in possession of Peter's body said gleefully. "Go on now, let the darkness consume your soul. Come on, embrace the black, Christopher."

"Shut up!" Chris's sister screamed at him.

She came towards him as if she wanted to do some damage but Bennet held up a hand. "That isn't Peter talking, Claire. But it is his body."

A chuckle from Peter. "Oh fine. You can have him back. I did what I sought out to do."

Peter's head fell back and his eyes began to glow a red hue. A strange smoky substance leaked out of Peter's mouth as it opened and the smoke shifted into the form of Dante. With a sigh, Peter's head fell forward and when he opened his eyes again, they were his usual brown color. He looked around him in confusion.

"What's going on? How did I get on the ground?" Peter asked them in puzzlement.

"I could explain that if you'd like." Dante piped up.

Though Dante's body still laid on the ground, he was also standing before them. The Dante that was standing didn't seem to have an actual solid form. His standing self seemed lighter in color than his physical form and this talking one also appeared partially see-through.

"Christopher destroyed my physical body, yes. But not my spirit. And I took control of your body so I could repay the favor." Dante told him.

Spirit? There were such things as ghosts now? Or was this a part of his power, manifesting itself in a bizarre manner? Maybe yet another illusion? How could they ever know what was real anywhere near this thing that was intent on causing them great pain?

Repay the favor... Peter thought to himself. It dawned on him, what exactly that statement meant. He stood up and took in the scene.

"Chris! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" Peter started, panicked by what he had done.

Chris lifted his head to stare at him and it only made Peter feel worse. The man's remaining good eye reflected his pain and anguish. He clearly didn't want to die but his body wasn't going to last much longer. Dante stood by watching enthusiastically. He appeared to be quite satisfied with his work and was apparently not upset about losing his physical body. No, Dante seemed much more fascinated on paying close attention as Chris's breathing grew more and more labored and slow. Eva was still repeating that someone had to save him as she rocked back and forth on her knees.

Mohinder removed his bloody hands from Chris's chest, knowing that it wasn't doing any good. Chris was losing too much blood and the bullets had most likely punctured a lung to make matters worse. They were all staring down at Chris sadly now. They didn't want him to die any more than he wanted to but there was nothing they could do to save him. Eva sensed this general consensus and grew angry.

"We have to save him!" she screamed.

Wesker lifted his eyes to look at his daughter, shocked by her outburst. Eva's eyes desperately flickered around her as she searched for some way to help him and then they landed on Sheva's body. Squinting her eyes, the girl spotted something and she ran over to the corpse. She returned to Chris's side with something in her hand and Wesker saw it was the syringe Sheva had stabbed him with to overdose his serum. Apparently she had kept the empty syringe with her. Before Wesker realized what his daughter intended to do, Eva jabbed herself in the arm with the needle, drawing blood.

"What are you doing? Eva!" Wesker yelled.

Eva paid him no attention and stabbed the syringe into Chris's chest before he could stop her, injecting her own blood into Chris. She could only hope that her blood could heal other people like it did for her. Finished inserting the blood, she tossed the needle away but felt her heart fall. It hadn't worked. Chris's eyes were staring blankly at the blue sky above, glazed over.

"No!" she cried in horror.

Dante began laughing. "It's sad how the good ones always die."

"I'll kill you!" Eva screamed at Dante, getting to her feet.

"Already dead, but I admire the defiance." Dante said to her and then his face grew serious. "Christopher had some defiance to him, didn't he? Shame we won't get to see him give me that defiant glare of his one last time."

Eva positively seethed with rage but she couldn't hurt him when he didn't appear to retain a physical form of any kind, and this angered her even further. Her father spoke her name and she detected a trace of urgency in his voice which was enough to curb her growing anger. She glanced at Wesker and saw he was staring down at Chris. Following his gaze, her breath caught in her throat.

Chris's open eye was clouding over with a green color and then his eye seemed to almost absorb it, once again exposing his brown eye, though Eva could swear there were now green specks in the brown iris. The BSAA soldier's eye blinked once and he drew in a sharp intake of breath.

"Chris!" Eva shouted and embraced him tightly.

The man blinked a few more times, taking in the girl wrapped around him. "Eva? How am I..alive?"

"An excellent question." Dante uttered in awe.

"I injected my blood into you and it brought you back to life." Eva revealed to him happily.

Chris seemed to be remembering her doing that now and he placed a hand to his chest. The two bullet holes were no longer there. He felt something moving in his throat and he turned and hacked violently onto the ground. His eye grew wide when Chris saw he had just coughed up the two bullets. The agent started to get to his feet and Wesker and Eva moved to help him stand. Bennet walked over to Chris and handed him his gun which Chris holstered. Turning to Eva, Chris thanked her for saving him yet again.

"I don't believe it. Why couldn't you just die like your African friend?" Dante complained with annoyance.

Chris stood upright to show how he was still strong even with his other wounds. "Because you underestimate us. You think people are all the same but we're not." As an afterthought, he added, "Mistake, yours."

He shifted to look over his shoulder at the green-eyed girl. "Right, Eva?"

At first she seemed surprised he was asking her but then she quickly recovered and nodded. "Right."

Dante was furious now. "You may not be able to harm me now that I no longer have a physical body, but I can still hurt you! Now die!"


	21. Saying Goodbye

Chapter 20

-Saying Goodbye-

Dante started walking purposefully towards Chris and Eva, determined to finish them off. Chris placed himself in front of Eva as Dante came at them but then a flash of some kind went off directly in front of them. A man was standing between Chris and Dante. His body was similar to Dante's in that it was see-through. Standing between the two of them they could see the new arrival wore a STARS uniform.

The man faced Dante. "Why don't you just back off, ya hear?"

Chris stared incredulously at the spirit standing before him. "Forrest?"

Forrest Speyer glanced back at him and a grin spread across his lips. "Hey Chris."

Another flash of light. "Still getting yourself into trouble, eh Chris?"

Kenneth Sullivan had just appeared near Forrest and had spoken to Chris. A few more flashes and now Joseph Frost and Richard Aiken were also standing between Chris and Dante. A flicker of annoyance passed across Dante's features as he took in the appearances of the deceased STARS members.

"What is this?" Dante questioned irritably.

"We're here to make sure you go back where you belong without hurting anyone." Joseph informed him.

Dante seemed to be searching them for some kind of answer and then he smiled. "Ah, you can only protect him. Then I'll just move on to someone else."

He turned his eyes onto Peter and Nathan, who were standing behind him and to his left. With a smile, he took a step towards them threateningly but that was as far as he got. Two figures appeared in front of the Petrelli brothers.

"I'd appreciate you keeping your hands off my sons." Arthur Petrelli said sternly.

"Yes, it would be in your best interest to listen to him," added the man next to him, who was Linderman.

Nathan and Peter seemed surprised at who had appeared to protect them but Dante just looked infuriated. He spun around and headed for Matt but a young woman stepped in his path with her hands on her hips, after she came in a flash of the weird light that seemed to keep happening.

"Uh yeah, you can stay away from him," she said with attitude.

Matt was amazed to see her. "Daphne!"

The short blonde twisted her neck to gaze at him, smiling. Dante was growing increasingly upset and Chris got the feeling he was losing his ability to stay in their world. It seemed the appearance of the other spirits was causing him to lose his control. Searching among each member of their group, his eyes finally landed on Wesker.

"You! You won't have any to save you!" Dante decided, and moved towards Wesker with murderous intent.

Two flashed of light and then a woman with long blonde hair and a man in a lab coat were standing between Wesker and Dante.

"Wrong," the woman said to Dante.

"He has friends too," the man in the lab coat informed him briskly.

Eva stared at the man in the lab coat as if trying to figure something out. "Birkin?"

Birkin gave her a small smile. "You remembered. Wow, how you've grown."

"How's Sherry?" Birkin asked, looking at Wesker. "Is she alright?"

Wesker replied smoothly. "Of course. I promised I would look after her."

Birkin nodded with relief and turned back to face Dante. Meanwhile, Wesker now only had eyes for the woman standing next to the white coated scientist. She sensed his stare and turned to look at him with a smile.

"Albert..." she said as she gazed at him.

"Jane, I'm so sorry... I didn't think Umbrella would come after you." Wesker said, a hint of sadness in his tone.

"Spencer wasn't happy when you decided to transfer out of the lab. It was no accident. Spencer ordered those men to kill me and take Eva. Let's be thankful you arrived in time to stop them," the woman told him.

"But I didn't. You-" Wesker was cut off.

"You did. You kept them from taking our baby and that's what matters to me." Jane Wesker informed him. "Now you have to let me go, Albert. You've been using my death as a reason to do many things I never would have tolerated. Enough is enough. I know it's difficult but you need to move on and let me go."

"Mom?" Eva asked the woman in a small voice.

Jane turned around to look at her and smiled. "Eva... You're all grown up."

She seemed to notice something strange. "But, green eyes...?"

"Umbrella injected her with a virus the night they killed you." Wesker told her.

Immediately the woman's eyes lit up with worry but Eva quickly spoke. "The virus isn't anything bad. It just allows me to heal if I die."

Jane didn't seem much more calm about the whole idea but she appeared to accept it as reality and turned away from Eva.

"Sin, it's time for you to go." Jane told Dante firmly. "You don't belong here any more than we do."

"No!" Dante thundered. "I want my fun! I want them to die!"

"It doesn't matter what you want." Sheva had appeared and was standing next to Jane, fixing Sin with a hard stare. "What matters is that you're going to the world you belong in."

Dante was becoming increasingly see-through and he lifted his hands out in front of him when he noticed they were disappearing. Fixing them with a final glare, he started to disappear entirely.

"Humanity is weak! Humans will always sin and as long as they sin, I will never truly die. I will never be just a memory!" Dante raged before vanishing entirely.

A strange swirling cloud appeared near the edge of the hill, in what could most readily be described as a vortex of some kind. Sheva turned her gaze to Chris.

"Just so you know, I had changed my mind long ago about betraying you. Once I got to know you I knew I would never be able to do that to you. We were partners, Chris, 'til the end."

Satisfied she had said what she wanted, Sheva was the first to enter the vortex and Daphne, Linderman, and Arthur Petrelli immediately walked over to the strange cloud as well and passed right through it. When they did, all three disappeared into thin air. It seemed it was time for them to go back where they belonged as well, in the world of the dead, whatever or wherever that might be.

Forrest Speyer scoffed and gave a laugh. "Not so tough."

Jane gave him an almost scolding look and he abruptly cut off his laugh. The deceased STARS soldier gave Chris a giant grin before trotting over to the vortex and stepping inside. The other STARS members went over to it and Joseph waited outside of it as the rest went in. He waited there, looking in Jane and Birkin's direction. Apparently he was waiting for them to depart first. Jane turned back to her husband and though she couldn't actually touch him, she placed a hand by his cheek as if to caress it.

"Take care of her." Jane whispered softly.

There was no need to specify who she meant, for there was only one girl that Jane cared about more than anyone else. She gave Eva one last smile before heading straight for the vortex and going in. Birkin followed behind her and that left only the deceased STARS member Joseph Frost. He stood there with his arms crossed against his chest and he looked to Chris.

"Someone wants to see you." Joseph told him.

Chris started to ask what he meant but his question caught in his throat when he saw her. Jill. She was standing right in front of the murky vortex, staring at him. The two long time partners stared at each for several long moments and seemed to be communicating some sort of private message between the two of them. Though her eyes remained sorrowful, Jill smiled comfortingly at Chris.

"It's going to be okay." Jill said to them. "It really is."

She examined Chris's face one last time, then turned and departed through the vortex. Chris gazed after her lingeringly and Joseph met the BSAA agent's somber expression with a friendly smirk. He shifted towards the vortex and glancing behind him, the dead STARS member waved a hand out to the side in farewell to his old comrade, Chris. Then he was gone and the vortex faded from sight. And then the entire hill was shifting and morphing, disappearing around them.

Chris, Eva, and Wesker found themselves standing outside the tyrant's compound in Africa. The same building which used to belong to Umbrella but was now Tricell's property. The three quickly established that they were alone. The rest of the group had vanished, most likely to the various places they had come from. Now that this was all over, they had gone home and the remaining three were left to pick up the pieces.


	22. Wesker's Promise

Chapter 21

-Wesker's Promise-

Under Eva's insistence, Wesker went to fetch a first aid kit from the building and took care of Chris's wounds. After a few minutes, bandages covered the agent's entire upper body and were wrapped around his head and over his injured right eye which he was still unable to open. Chris didn't have any new clothes so he remained in his bloody shirt, but fortunately Wesker and Eva had other clothes to put on. When Eva came back out after changing her shirt, Chris chuckled when he saw what she had chosen to put on.

"What are you laughing at?" Eva asked him through suspicious eyes.

"Nothing, don't even worry about it," he replied quickly.

Eva was wearing the exact same black t-shirt she had been wearing before. The only difference was that this one wasn't soaked in her blood. The green-eyed girl seemed to have her father's sense of style, or at least color. Chris noticed she didn't have her arm in a sling and it hung motionless by her side.

"Don't you want to take care of that?" Chris wondered, gesturing to the useless arm.

Eva shrugged her shoulders. "I'll get along fine without bandages for now."

Chris decided not to force the matter and he shifted away from her, staring out over the African plains to watch the horizon as the sun set. Behind him, Wesker came out of the building and a glance told him the tyrant had chosen the exact identical clothing he had worn before. Chris shook his head in amusement. Those two were one and the same. From behind he heard the two conversing with one another.

"Why can't I have a cool power like yours?" Eva asked her father. "You get healing, superspeed, and superstrength. No fair. I have to die for something to happen for me."

"Eva, I want you to live a normal life. I don't want you to become inhuman like me." Wesker informed her briskly.

He didn't seem to have any interest in remaining on the topic but Eva wasn't going to let him off that easy apparently.

"I doubt there's going to be any normal for me. I'm seventeen and graduated from college, my father's pretty much a supersoldier, and I can't die. Not that I know of anyways."

There was a long period of silence and for a moment Chris thought they might have left without him hearing, but then Eva's voice filled the quiet.

"So what of your promise?"

Chris perked up, he had wondered what promise Wesker may have made to her earlier so he wanted to hear this. After a brief pause the blonde tyrant answered her.

"Yes. You may stay with me. I gave you my word, didn't I?"

He couldn't see since he had his back to the two but he could practically hear Eva's head bobbing up and down as she showed her understanding and agreement with Wesker.

"Yeah, yeah. You did."

Someone came to stand next to him. Eva shifted her stance beside him and stared out at the sunset. After a few seconds of quiet peacefulness of just relaxing in the moment with no cause for concern or heartache other than the kind which already plagued them both, Eva broke the silence.

"So what are you going to do now? The organization you're a part of isn't real, so what are you going to do?" she asked him quietly.

"It's been my life's work to bring Umbrella down and I thought I accomplished that goal five years ago. But I was wrong and they're still out there, which means I have a job to do." Chris told her with grim determination.

"But the letter said Sheva was their last hope for Umbrella's revival. Now that she's dead I thought they would be finished..." Eva trailed off, looking to Chris for answers.

He shook his head. "Umbrella won't give up that easily. Not if they're still out there trying to bring themselves back after all this time, even without Spencer to lead them. I'm going to stop that evil corporation, for good this time."

"Ah Chris, you haven't changed at all." Wesker said, giving Chris his trademark smirk.

The black-clad man strolled slowly over to stand on Chris's other side, watching the sun's gradual descent along with them. He continued to wear his ever present dark sunglasses but he peered at the other man over the rims.

"It seems our paths are forever destined to cross." Wesker commented.

"Yeah, it seems that way." Chris admitted.

"I have an idea!" Eva exclaimed, suddenly very enthusiastic. "You two both keep crossing paths and you both hate Umbrella. You guys are perfect for working together to fight Umbrella! I'll help! The three of us will take that corporation down together!"

Chris seemed stunned by the idea and stared incredulously at Eva. "What?! Wesker and me working together? We hate each other!"

"So what was your plan then? To go and fight Umbrella alone?" Eva asked him skeptically.

She accidentally hit a sore spot though, because Chris's expression darkened and grief filled his one visible eye. His jaw twitched when his teeth clenched together as he struggled to keep his emotions from surfacing.

"Jill and I, we sought to destroy Umbrella together and we thought we had. I'm grateful she died without knowing those bastards are still out there." Chris laughed but it was forced and filled with despair.

Eva's excitement faded and she grew more solemn. "Chris, there will be a happy ending for you. Sometimes it just takes time."

He sighed, obviously weighed down heavily by the day's events. "I'd like to believe what we saw back there was real. Our loved ones come back to us to get to say goodbye. But a part of me thinks it was all Sin, or Dante or whatever. That somehow he turned his own power in on himself and it destroyed any part of him that might have remained when I wounded him."

"I don't understand." Eva shared, frowning in her confusion of his thoughts.

He did his best to articulate his thoughts that even he was newly coming to understand as possibly true.

"I'm not sure on this, but maybe somehow there were two parts of him. Part of him convinced in his psychosis that he was actually the real and true living version of sin itself, and the part that knew he was just some guy who got created into what he became. All those people we met with powers? I'm starting to think they may have been a part of Dante's creation too. Like maybe it was the part his other half created, to try and stop the evil things being created by its own power."

"But they have to be real. And your sister being dragged into this...?" Eva noted, still so terribly confused and uncertain about things now.

He got why she would want to believe all of it to be real, to have happened. Who wouldn't want to be able to see a mother they couldn't actually remember because she'd died so young? And Chris wanted to believe that group of people they'd met were really and truly out there somewhere, doing good. They'd been real heroes, each and every one of them.

"If people like that are out there with powers, just being born that way, why wouldn't we have seen them? Especially in my line of work, my cases strive off of the unusual and dangerous. Maybe you're right, maybe they're out there. I'm just telling you what I think."

"That Dante had a split-personality and actively tried to destroy himself while the other side got all greedy and murder happy?"

He looked at her. "Pretty much. Or maybe some kind of death echo? If a thing can become powerful enough to be looking like other people and popping dead things back into existence, why not be a big enough force to create some kind of burst of power upon its death?"

"Maybe you're right. But us being there and what happened was real enough. And we won. It's over."

Chris glanced at her before returning his gaze to the sky. He knew where she was going with this and it just wouldn't be true for him.

"People like us, we don't get happy endings."

Determination appeared with full force in Eva's expression. "That's why it's up to us to be the ones to fight. So others can get their happy endings."

This idea appealed to Chris and he actually felt a sliver of positivity return to his weighted soul.

"You're right. If I can't be happy then I'll make sure others can be."

"We'll make sure. You don't have to do this alone." Eva told him.

Chris turned to Wesker, who met his resolved gaze. "What do you say? I know we don't like each other and there's that whole arch nemesis thing... But if we form an alliance, I'm sure we can destroy Umbrella."

Wesker appeared to be contemplating the whole situation as he studied the other man's face. And then after looking at Chris's brown iris which now contained traces of green in it, he reached a decision. Wesker surprised Chris when he held out a gloved hand for him to shake. He never thought he'd see the day...

"Agreed. We shall have an alliance to destroy Umbrella." Wesker affirmed.

Eva threw her arms around Chris happily. "Yes! And you can stay with us since we're probably going to have to go into hiding."

"Hiding?" Chris asked with confusion.

"Yeah, from Umbrella." Eva explained matter-of-factly. "When you don't go back to work for the BSAA, they're going to realize you've discovered their true purpose and come after you. You're too much of a thorn in their side for them to let you live with what you know."

Chris frowned. He hadn't thought about that but he realized she was right. He didn't think they'd come after his sister or any of the others, if those others even did exist, because they would have no reason to suspect any of them were involved. But Chris figured it would be best if he warned his sister and friends just to be safe. Working with Wesker, he wondered if the tyrant would go for that idea of him contacting others. Maybe he wouldn't tell him.

"I guess that's true." Chris conceded.

Wesker shifted his sunglasses and started to walk across the field, towards a hangar in the near distance.

"Fine, you may live with us." Wesker called back to Chris. "But if you and my daughter engage in..relations, I will castrate you personally."

Chris's eyes widened in shock at the wild insinuation and then became aware that Eva still had her arms wrapped around him. Not in the least bit eager to take Wesker up on his threat, he quickly detached himself from the blonde haired girl. Chris could feel his cheeks heating up in embarrassment and a quick glance at the girl and her matching red blush told him the next few days were going to be extremely uncomfortable. The two walked hurriedly to catch up with the other but before they did, Chris swore he heard Wesker say something else.

"The day I ever see mini Redfields..ahahaha..."


End file.
